Yulia Ivanovna Fausek (Andrusova) Memoirs
Publication and comments by S.I. Fokina; introductory article by S.I. Fokina and O.B. Vakhromeeva
St. Petersburg State University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia; [email protected]; [email protected]
The published part of the extensive memoirs of Yu.I. Fausek (Andrusova), a graduate of the natural sciences department of the Higher Women's (Bestuzhev) Courses in 1884, is primarily devoted to the informal characteristics of the biology teachers who worked on the courses in the 80s. XIX century. The biographical article, written by the authors of the publication, for the first time covers the entire life path of the memoirist, in to a greater extent known in Russia as the founder of the system preschool education according to the Montessori method. A significant part of the photographs illustrating the text are little known.
Key words: Yu.I. Fausek (Andrusova), Higher Women's (Bestuzhe) Courses, St. Petersburg University, zoology, botany, physiology, biology professors.
Diaries, letters and memoirs of contemporaries are invaluable historical sources and at the same time documents of the human personality. Thanks to them, we can more fully get to know and understand people whom we did not have the opportunity to personally meet, and often only from them can we learn about events and people who were ignored by official history and forgotten over time - sunk into oblivion. Moreover, studying the memories of eyewitnesses of the era is a way that helps to better understand both the people themselves and the life and social environment that surrounded these people.
Yulia Ivanovna Fausek (nee Andrusova), the younger sister of the geologist-paleontologist, academician Nikolai Ivanovich Andrusov (1861-1924), lived relatively long life, rich in its first half with interesting meetings, travel, communication with famous scientists, artists, sculptors, musicians, and writers. This woman also suffered a lot of grief - the loss of her husband and three sons, the ban in Soviet Russia of her favorite activity - preschool education according to the Montessori system, and death in old age in besieged Leningrad. Shortly before this sad ending, in the late 30s. XX century, Yulia Ivanovna recorded some events of her life and did it masterfully, although she was far from completing the description of what had happened to her over many years1. She turned out to have a tenacious memory, a good literary style and that confidential intonation that gradually draws the reader into the circle of close, caring witnesses of that inner and external life, which began almost 150 years ago near the warm Black Sea, and to a greater extent took place in St. Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad.
Yulia Ivanovna was born in the city of Kerch, Tauride province, on the third (old style) June 1863 in the family of a navigator merchant fleet. Her parents had
1 Analysis of the notebooks in which memories are recorded, and some facts mentioned in the text indicate that they were started by Yu.I. Fausek not earlier than 1936 and completed in the autumn-winter of 1939.
five children, but Julia developed the greatest affection and closeness for the rest of her life only with the eldest (on
2 years old) brother Nikolai, whom she called in her memoirs “ best friend" He probably partially replaced the girl's father, who died at sea when she was only eight years old. At the same time, the girl grew up as an independent child, inquisitively looking at the world around her, sensitive and lonely - a person of nature. “Until the age of eight, I felt the world like a pagan, it was all filled with deities, but good deities,” recalled Yulia Ivanovna2. She herself aspired to be such a deity: she saved flies that got into a jar of water, mice from a mousetrap, crippled cats and dogs. All kinds of creatures, be it flies, spiders, frogs or lizards, never aroused fear or hostility in the girl - she treated them as living beings, just like herself. The mole cricket found in the garden “chewed so funny with its large jaws and looked like one of my old aunts,” wrote Fausek3.
Wandering alone was the girl’s favorite pastime: “Sometimes I went to the pier when the passenger ship arrived and waited for the arrival of some extraordinary person<...>. This feeling (expectation of the extraordinary) lived in me for a long time and beyond my childhood, in my youth and youth and later, but. little by little it diminished and disappeared.”4 The love for trees, the ringing of bells, sad and cheerful, and the barrel organ, which originated in early childhood, accompanied her throughout her life. Things-friends and things-enemies surrounded the girl, as in Andersen's fairy tales, which she loved very much5.
We specifically, following the memoirist, describe in sufficient detail the initial impressions of the life of this little man, because much (if not everything) in adults comes from childhood, and this distant childhood explains, as it seems to us, the rich palette of memory of the 75-year-old writer.
After the death of the father, the family lost relative material well-being and was left with a pension of 150 rubles a year, dependent on the mother’s brother, who paid little attention to his relatives. At the age of nine, Yulia was sent to a boarding school. A direct encounter with the alien, if not hostile, way of life at the Madame's establishment led to the fact that instead of going to school, the student spent a week studying on Mount Mithridates. “I wanted to study, I really wanted to, but not the way Madame taught me,” complained Yulia Ivanovna6. Fortunately for the girl, a girls’ gymnasium opened in the city, where she was soon accepted into the second grade.
2 Quotes taken from the memoirs of Yu.I. Fausek, stored in the Russian national library(RNB), in the Department of Manuscripts (OR). F. 807. Unit. hr. 1-2 and 17; further, only the number of archival storage units and their sheets are indicated - Units. hr. 1. L. 28.
3 Units hr. 1. L. 29.
4 Units hr. 1. L. 85a, 85s.
5 In one of the letters from K.I. Chukovsky (1926) allegedly said that Yulia Ivanovna “cannot stand fairy tales” (comments to the collection “Yu. Fausek. Pedagogy of Maria Montessori.” M.: Genesis, 2007. P. 349). In his memories of childhood, Yu.I. Fausek writes the opposite.
6 Units hr. 1. L. 160.
Yu.I. Andrusova. St. Petersburg, 1900s. Museum of the History of St. Petersburg State University
In third grade, Andrusova was already one of the best students. Her favorite subjects were drawing (because of the process itself) and the Russian language because of good teachers. The family's more than modest wealth encouraged her to start working - from the fifth grade, the girl began giving private lessons, which were a necessary help for about ten years. In fact, Yulia used the money she earned from her lessons to go to the capital. “I really loved to draw. But then there was a time - the end of the 70s, when everyone had to study natural sciences, and I succumbed to the same trend,” Yulia Ivanovna explained her intention to enroll in women’s after high school medical courses. At that time, the ideals of the sixties were still strong - a sense of duty to the people and the desire to be useful to them were the main guidelines when choosing a life path for the “conscious” part of youth.
No matter how much Andrusova loved this city, after graduating from high school nothing connected her with Kerch - her brother studied at Novorossiysk University in Odessa. “I was lonely: there was no intimacy between me and my mother,” Fausek recalled. - Books and dreams were my companions<...>. Childhood was over, youth was coming, and with it new worries and new dreams.”8 Several gymnasium acquaintances studied in St. Petersburg: three in medical courses, and one in Bestuzhevsky, so it was planned to go to St. Petersburg. “I had to prepare to enter medical courses, because my brother ordered me to do so when he left<...>. We knew very little about the Bestuzhev courses<...>. But I didn’t have a special interest in science, but just an interest in knowledge. My true attraction was to the arts.”9 Nevertheless, at the end of the summer of 1880, Andrusova, with fifty rubles, for the first time in her life, went north by rail - to St. Petersburg to study medicine.
Women's medical courses were located on Peski in the Nikolaev hospital. However, it was “not fate” for Andrusova to become a medical doctor. On entrance examinations she failed Latin language. She could have been forgiven for this, but the courses were accepted at the age of 20, and the girl was only 17.
On the advice of a fellow countrywoman, she went to the Higher Women’s Courses with Nadezhda Vasilievna Stasova10. “This wonderful, infinitely kind woman received me very kindly,” wrote Fausek, “and explained that with my 7th grade diploma I could not enter the Higher Courses, for this I needed to pass additional exams for the 8th grade: Russian and mathematics "eleven. Brother Nikolai insisted in letters on returning to Kerch, but it was impossible to return back with anything. According to Stasova’s note, Yulia began to walk
7 Units hr. 1. L. 160.
8 Units hr. 1. L. 245, 260.
9 Units hr. 1. L. 261.
10 N.V. Stasova (1822-1895). Active activist in women's higher education, one of the organizers of the Higher Women's (Bestuzhev) Courses, daughter of a major Russian architect V.P. Stasova, sister of the famous art critic V.V. Stasova.
11 Units hr. 1. L. 269.
A.N. Beketov. St. Petersburg, 1882. Museum-archive of D.I. Mendeleev
at the lecture, while simultaneously seeking permission to take the exams necessary for official admission. In late autumn she managed to do this at the Kronstadt Women's Gymnasium. And again, her fate hung in the balance: when the director of the Kobeko gymnasium began to fill out a certificate of passed exams, he found in her gymnasium certificate a B in behavior - with A's in almost all subjects. Getting into a higher education institution with such a mark was almost unthinkable in those days. In front of the confused and amazed girl, the teacher drew up a certificate of passed exams, copying all the grades from the Kerch certificate into it and putting the behavior at 5, tore up the Kerch certificate and threw it into the trash. “Just give your word,” said the director, “that you will not tell anyone about my forgery until my death.” “I happily gave him my word,” Fausek recalled, “and I kept it. Only ten years later I read the announcement of his death in the newspapers, felt sad about the wonderful man and told my friends about his generous act.”12
So, from the autumn of 1880 to the spring of 1884, Yulia Ivanovna studied at the natural sciences department of the Higher Women's (Bestuzhev) Courses (VZHK). The life of a large capital city, “thousands of impressions from the environment: lectures, professors, students, people in general, conversations, books, St. Petersburg streets, the Hermitage, theaters”13 - all this now made up the world of a young provincial girl. But she had no one to count on, and in St. Petersburg, as in recent years in Kerch, a lot of time and energy was taken up by lessons that provided a means of subsistence.
Still vaguely imagining her future, Julia studied seriously - the process of education itself gave her great pleasure, especially because the courses were taught by a brilliant galaxy of almost exclusively university professors and teachers, including biologists. Meetings with these interesting people and famous scientists and teachers were reflected in her memoirs to varying degrees14.
For the portraits of some of these professors and teachers, Fausek's memories are especially important, since other informal references to their appearance and characters are either simply absent in the literature or date back to a later time. Thus, we practically do not know other lifetime descriptions of Merezhkovsky, one of the “fathers” of the now widely recognized theory of symbiogenesis15. Very lively images of the famous physiologists Sechenov and Vvedensky, as well as the zoologist Herzenstein, created by Yu.I. Fausek, it is also difficult to compare with anything previously published about these scientists.
12 Units hr. 1. L. 280.
13 Units hr. 2. L. 270.
14 Selecting excerpts from Yu.I.’s memories Fausek, for publication in this collection, we did not limit ourselves to portraits of biologists, but we considered it appropriate to give some descriptions of the life of female students and events that were especially memorable to the author.
15 About him and his research, see: Sapp J., Carrapico F., Zolotonosov M. Symbiogenesis: The Hidden Face of Constantin Merezhkowsky // History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. 2002. Vol. 24. P. 413-440; Fokin S.I. Konstantin Sergeevich Merezhkovskiy (1855-1921). “100 Years of the Endosymbiotic Theory: from Prokaryotes to Eukaryotic Organelles. Hamburg, 2005. P. 6-7; Fokin S.I. Konstantin Sergeevich Merezhkovsky // Russian scientists in Naples. St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2006. pp. 190-195., About Merezhkovsky of the St. Petersburg period, for example, there is only one phrase in the memoirs of A.M. Nikolsky (1858-1942). From the history of biological sciences Vol. 1M.; L., 1966. P. 79-108. - practically the only source where the same scientists of St. Petersburg in the early 80s are mentioned. XIX century, as in Fausek’s memoirs.
Teaching biological disciplines at the Higher Women's Courses during the time when Yu.I. studied there. Andrusov, was delivered very well and was carried out by truly the best professors and teachers, primarily from the Imperial St. St. Petersburg University(ISPbU)16. The department of botany in the courses was then headed by Andrei Nikolaevich Beketov (1825-1902), a major morphologist and founder of the national school of botanists-geographers, professor and rector of ISPbU, honorary academician Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (ISPbAN), director of courses in 1882-1887.
Part of the botany course was also taught by the professor of the Forestry Institute, later an academician of the Institute of SPbAS, Ivan Parfenyevich Borodin (1847-1930), who was largely involved in the anatomy and physiology of plants17.
Andrei Sergeevich Famintsyn (1835-1918), head of the Russian school of plant physiology, professor at ISPbU, academician and one of the founders of the theory of the origin of the eukaryotic cell through successive symbioses (symbiogenesis), from 1879 to 1886 he taught a course in plant physiology at the IVK.
Lectures on the zoology of invertebrate animals were given by Professor Nikolai Petrovich Wagner (1829-1907), the founder of the corresponding office at ISPbU and the first biological station in the polar latitudes (on Solovki)18, later corresponding member. ISPbAN (1898). During his long trip abroad (1883-1884)
16 In addition to the break of 1889-1895, when biological disciplines were not taught at all at the VZhK, this was the teaching of botany, zoology and physiology. For these areas of biology, special departments were created at the Courses in 1879. Anatomy and histology were originally part of physiology and only in 1906 were they separated into a separate department for their reading, headed by A.G. Gurvich (1874-1954).
17 In 1886 Borodin replaced A.S. Famintsina began reading plant physiology at the VZHK.
18 N.P. Wagner was also known to the reading public of the time as "Purr-Cat" - the author of a large cycle of fairy tales, short stories and several larger literary works.
N.V. Stasova. St. Petersburg, 1883. Museum-archive of D.I. Mendeleev
lectures were given by Mikhail Mikhailovich Usov (1845-1902), a graduate of ISPbU (1869), a zoologist-embryologist, later a professor of zoology at Kazan University, and a direct student of Wagner - Konstantin Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (1855-1921), who later moved away from classical zoology and became a professor botany at Kazan University (1908-1914). He became widely known as a biologist many years after his death (in the 70s of the 20th century), when it became clear that back in 1905, in one of his works, Merezhkovsky laid the foundations for the theory of symbiogenesis. Long before that, Merezhkovsky, while still a student (1879-1880), discovered the first Early Paleolithic cave sites in Russia in Crimea.
The assistant in the invertebrate course was the future famous physiologist Nikolai Evgenievich Vvedensky (1852-1922), a student of I.M. Sechenov, at the beginning of his scientific career held the position of conservator of the Zootomy Cabinet of ISPbU.
Physiology at the IVH was presented by ISPbU professors: academician Philip Vasilievich Ovsyannikov (1827-1906), who worked mainly on the histology of the nervous system and embryology of invertebrates and fish and corresponding member. And honorary academician ISPbAN Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov (1829-1905), famous electrophysiologist, psychophysiologist and physiologist of the central nervous system. Since 1883, part of the physiological course began to be taught by the already mentioned above N.E. Vvedensky, electrophysiologist, creator of the doctrine of the processes of excitation and inhibition in the nervous system, who later also became a university professor and corresponding member. ISPbAN.
Immediately after completing her studies at the Courses, Andrusova was left at the Zoological Office, but without pay, so she had to go into service. Under the patronage of N.V. Stasova and M.N. Bogdanov, she was accepted as a science teacher at the M.N. gymnasium. Stoyunina19. For several years, in her free time from work, Andrusova studied zoology and in the zootomy office of the university - a rare case, since women at that time were not officially allowed into the university. Yulia Ivanovna even published one work on protozoology - “Ciliates of Kerch Bay” (1886), which puts her among the few first female protistologists. At the university, among Andrusova’s acquaintances were N.M. Knipovich,
A.I. Ulyanov, Yu.N. Wagner and her future husband V.A. Fausek20.
Soon after leaving St. Petersburg K.S. Merezhkovsky and appearance in the Zootomy office of V.M. Shimkevich21 the faculty authorities restored the status quo,
19 Maria Nikolaevna Stoyunina (1846-1940). The head of one of the best St. Petersburg private girls' gymnasiums, the wife of the famous teacher and methodologist V.Ya. Stoyunina (1826-1888). She was expelled from Russia in 1922 along with the family of her daughter, who was married to the famous philosopher N.O. Lossky. She died in exile. Yulia Ivanovna worked under the leadership of V.Ya. Stoyunin in the gymnasium of the book. A.A. Obolenskaya.
20 Nikolai Mikhailovich Knipovich (1862-1939), future major hydrobiologist-oceanographer, professor, corresponding member, and honorary academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences; Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov (1860-1887), elder brother of V.I. Ulyanov-Lenin, fourth year student at ISPbU, participant in the preparation of the assassination attempt on Alexander III, executed in 1887; Julius Nikolaevich Wagner (1865-1946), future prof. zoology in Kyiv, and after emigration, at the University of Belgrade, the son of N.P. Wagner; Victor Andreevich Fausek (1861-1910), future famous zoologist-embryologist, prof. VZhK and their director, as well as prof. Zoology of the Women's Medical Institute.
21 Vladimir Mikhailovich Shimkevich (1858-1923). Zoologist-evolutionist, graduate of Moscow University (1881), invited by N.P. in 1886. Wagner for the place of privatdozent,
and Yulia Ivanovna in the spring of 1887 had to stop her visits to the university. Nevertheless, she continued to work in the Zoological office of the VZhK. Being a capable draftswoman, Andrusova eventually began to fulfill orders for biological drawings, so that her connections with scientists, including university ones, even expanded. One of her regular clients was Prof. ON THE. Kholodkovsky, who at that time lectured both at the Courses and at the university. Little by little, she began to understand that science was not what she wanted to do in life. Fausek specifically dwells on this point in his memoirs:
“Disappointment set in, and not even disappointment, but a completely conscious conviction that I was not fit for science, that I could not devote myself to it the way a true scientist should devote himself. This conviction grew and became stronger in me when I compared myself with my brother, a real great scientist who devoted himself selflessly to science. I realized that in my studies of zoology, my eyes and hands were mostly occupied, and my thoughts were in the background. I approached science not as science, but as art, and applied art: I liked to examine, draw, and make preparations. In this last one I achieved great skill. Working in my office, I prepared a number of preparations for ciliates, such as no one had made before, and they served for two or three years as a guide for lectures by professors. And I moved away from science without regret, especially since its applied side remained with me for a long time in my life.”22
The change of orientation in Andrusova’s life was also facilitated by her marriage to V.A. in the summer of 1887. Fauseka (1861-1910). The next year, the couple had their first child, Vsevolod, and then three more children - Natalya (1891), Vladimir (1892) and Nikolai (1895). Yulia Ivanovna’s husband, a graduate of the University’s Zootomy Department and a specialist in comparative anatomy and embryology of invertebrates, on the contrary, was actively involved in science. In 1891, he defended his master's thesis and began teaching a course on invertebrate anatomy at the university as a private assistant professor. To continue his research, Viktor Andreevich traveled several times to work at the famous Naples Zoological Station, sometimes spending a long time there with his family (in total, the Fauseks lived in Italy for more than two years). Yulia Ivanovna noted in her memoirs: “Kerch, St. Petersburg, Rome and Naples are the best cities for me that I have ever seen. They were destined to absorb my whole life.”23 In 1898, the husband defended his dissertation for the title of Doctor of Zoology and received a chair at the Women's College medical institute. A year earlier, he was appointed head of the department of zoology and at the All-Russian Housing Complex, where in 1906 he became the first elected director. Life, ten years later, again connected Yulia Ivanovna with her aisha mater, but in a different capacity.
V.A. Fausek appeared in St. Petersburg even later than his wife - he was born in Saratov, studied at gymnasiums in Moscow and Kharkov, where he began his higher education at the local university. Only in 188424 he transferred to the 4th year of St.
in return for Merezhkovsky, who left St. Petersburg. Subsequently, the head. Zootomic and Zoological offices of ISPbU, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1920) and rector of Petrograd University (1919-1922). There was prof. (1914-1919) and the last director of the All-Russian Housing Complex (1918-1919).
22 Units hr. 2. L. 399.
23 Units hr. 2. L. 172.
24 Some formal moments (primarily dates) in Yulia Ivanovna’s memoirs should be treated carefully - sometimes she confuses them. So, Fausek arrived in St. Petersburg precisely in 1884 (and not in 1885 - l. 469 memoirs); married Fausek
St. Petersburg University. By his roots, he was a man of Europe: his paternal grandfather was Czech, his maternal grandfather was German, and one of his grandmothers was French. In addition to science, Fausek was seriously interested in art and literature (which probably brought the future spouses closer together) - he attended meetings with the poet A.N. Pleshcheev, was friends with V.M. Garshin, about whom he left interesting memories, participated in the Russian circle of artists and writers of the writer N.N. Firsov in Naples. Naturally, Yulia Ivanovna was introduced to her husband’s circle of acquaintances. Some famous people that time Yulia Ivanovna learned while still studying at the Courses - N.V. Stasova often invited her to her house (she lived with her brother, the famous art critic V.V. Stasov), where the flower of the cultural society of St. Petersburg then visited. They met many cultural figures already as husband and wife, primarily in the houses of the Davidovs, as well as the Beklemishevs and Pozenovs25, and in addition, at the artist N.A. Yaroshenko, with whom the Fauseks were very friendly. Of course, having become a professor of zoology and director of the VZHK, V.A. Fau-sec was constantly immersed in pedagogical and administrative work, where Yulia Ivanovna’s experience and knowledge also turned out to be useful.
In 1910, the happily calm life of the Fausek family suddenly and forever ended. Shortly after Christmas (January 15), the eldest son Vsevolod, a final year law student at the university, shot himself in the Fauseks’ apartment due to the inability to connect with his beloved girl (at the same time the girl committed suicide in Kharkov)26. It's hard to imagine the parents' condition. It is quite possible that what happened accelerated the end of Viktor Andreevich himself - he died on July 1 of the same year from kidney disease.
By that time, the Fausekovs’ middle son, Vladimir, had already entered the natural sciences department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University. As a zoologist, he showed some promise - in 1913 he worked, like his father before, at the Naples Zoological Station, and in the summer of 1914 he traveled to Central Asia and to the Borodino Biological Station, located on Lake Seliger. There he unexpectedly fell ill and, probably, while Vladimir was being transported to St. Petersburg (to the Mariinsky
A.S. Famintsyn. St. Petersburg, 1882. Museum-archive of D.I. Mendeleev
and Andrusov in 1887 (and not in 1888 - l. 468). Descriptions of events and emotional assessments, given by the memoirist, on the contrary, are apparently always accurate.
25 This means K.Yu. and A.A. Davidovs (director of the conservatory and publisher of magazines), V.A. and E.I. Beklemishev and L.V. and M.F. Posen, who visited many writers, artists, sculptors, actors and musicians: D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak, G.I. Uspensky, V.A. Shel-gunov, D.S. Merezhkovsky, Z.N. Gippius, A.I. Kuprin, A.I. Kuindzhi, M.V. Nesterov, N.N. Ge, G.G. Myasoedov, P.A. Bryullov, M.P. Klodt, R.R. Bach, G.R. Zaleman, P.P. Zabello, P. Samoilov,
A. Rubinstein, A.V. Verzhbilovich, A.S. Auer et al.
hospital), time was lost - he died on July 127. This is how his senior university colleague P.D. recalled this sad event. Rezvoy: “The life of our colony was darkened by the death of the young student Fausek. Sick, he was evacuated from the island. Seliger to St. Petersburg, where he soon died. Fau-sec enjoyed universal sympathy; despite his youth, he was already a fully formed zoologist.”28
At this time, Yulia Ivanovna, who had only slightly recovered from the loss of her eldest son and husband, was engaged in a new field of pedagogy - preschool education according to the Montessori system29. In 1912, Fausek read an article by E.N. in the magazine “Bulletin of Education”. Yanzhul under the title “About an Italian kindergarten”, which attracted Yulia Ivanovna with an unexpected approach to identifying and developing creative inclinations in children. A year later, Montessori’s own book “Children’s Home (the experience of I.P. Borodin. St. Petersburg, 1885) was published in Russia.
scientific pedagogy)". Archive of the Department of Botany of St. Petersburg State University
Yu. I. Fausek recalled: “In 1913, I lived at a dacha on the Baltic Sea in Toila with my children (with the Grevsov family), where I met the old mathematician V.V. Lermontov, an ardent admirer of the Montessori system”30. Based on general interest Friendship was established between the summer residents. They saw each other almost every day and together studied Montessori materials that Lermontov brought with him to the dacha.
At that time, this system of education caused misunderstanding and even contemptuous ridicule among the general public. “At that time in my life (extremely painful for me),” Yulia Ivanovna recalled, “I was very disappointed in my teaching work. The Montessori system was a beacon of salvation for me<...>, calling us to move forward to new promised lands for our children.”31 In October of the same 1913, she managed to found the first kindergarten according to the Montessori system, at the commercial school M.A. Shidlovskaya, where she then worked and where the director was a fan of this system, S.I. Sozonov.
New direction pedagogical activity Fausek was completely captured. In 1914, she was sent by the Secondary School Department of the Ministry of Public Education to Rome, where international Montessori courses existed. Returning from a business trip, Yulia Ivanovna continued the work she had started with renewed energy. There were thirty children. She felt like a scientist in her laboratory: disappointment from her own inability was replaced by confidence in the fidelity of the chosen educational system. This conviction grew from the first results: children, these main
27 Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg. F. 14. Op. 3. D. 55793.
28 Rezvoy P.D. From my zoological memories // Workers of Soviet hydrobiology.
V.M. Rylov. G.Yu. Vereshchagin. A.L. Bening. M.; L.: Ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1963. P. 31.
29 Maria Montessori (1870-1952). Italian teacher, founder of a widespread system of preschool education, based on the development of various skills in children during classes in the form of free games with visual aids.
30 Units hr. 17. L. 1.
31 Units hr. 17. L. 1.
M. N. Bogdanov. St. Petersburg, 1882. Museum-archive of D. I. Mendeleev
The participants and assistants of the unusual undertaking, their successes, reassured her and strengthened Fausek’s faith in her capabilities. In 1915, various teachers, scientists and simply curious people began to visit the garden. Among the latter was, for example, the famous artist K.S. Petrov-Vodkin - three of his godchildren were raised in the garden. In 1916 Yu.I. Fau-sec was invited by the Petrograd Society of Factories and Manufacturers to organize two “orphanages” for the children of factory workers. This initiative, unfortunately, did not develop: in February 1917, the revolution broke out and negotiations on the organization of houses ceased. At the very end of the existence of “old Russia”, they managed to receive a small subsidy from the Ministry of Public Education, for which Montessori courses were opened at the Shidlovskaya school for 25 students. The lecturers there were V.V. Polovtsev, V.V. Polovtseva, S.I. Sozonov, Povarnin, Yu.I. Fausek and T.N. Gippius.
The famous pianist and conductor A.I. was interested in this undertaking. Siloti. Architect S.S. Krichinsky developed a plan for the “First City orphanage according to the Montessori system." But all good intentions remained in the realm of dreams - the state had no time for innovations in preschool education, and there were no rich patrons of the arts. As a result, the money collected (1,500 rubles) was transferred to Fausek for the construction of a children's playground. The place was secured at the Women's Pedagogical Institute - the children were provided with an auditorium room there.
In 1918, already new government, Yu.I. Fausek was asked to set up a children's summer playground on the Zhdanovskaya Spit on the St. Petersburg side. Soon the Commissariat of Public Education began opening kindergartens. In the autumn of the same year, a new kindergarten according to the Montessori system was opened at the 25th Soviet School (formerly the Nikolaev Military Gymnasium), which was then headed by Ya.M. Shatunovsky is an extremely responsive and active teacher. In organizing gardens and pedagogical work in them Yu.I. Fausek was helped by her grown daughter Natalya (she soon entered the acting studio and subsequently became an actress at the Radlov Theater). However, in the fall of 1918, Shatunovsky was removed from the school, and the new leadership turned out to be completely indifferent to Fausek’s initiative.
In 1919, Fausek was invited as a professor to lecture on the Montessori method at the Preschool Institute (Pedagogical Institute of Preschool Education), which opened on the basis of the former Nikolaev Orphan Institute. From there, with several colleagues, Yulia Ivanovna was sent to Luga at the beginning of October, where preschool education courses were held. There, the teachers found themselves cut off from Petrograd for a month and a half by Yudenich’s offensive, and Fausek, with great difficulty, managed to return to Petrograd through Pskov (most of the course participants went with the Whites to Estonia during the Red Guards’ offensive).
Living conditions in Petrograd continued to deteriorate - the temperature in kindergarten did not rise above 8 degrees, food was scarce, electricity was constant
went out. Instead of the 15 children who were initially recruited, there were now 36 of them, of very different ages and very neglected both physically and morally. “I remember,” Fausek wrote, “someone asked me: “What system do you use to work?
According to Froebel or Montessori?" - and I replied that in order to remove lice, neither one nor the other system is needed."32 Nevertheless, the garden existed, although it changed its location: in 1922-1930 it was located right in At the preschool institute (the preschool department of the A.I. Herzen Pedagogical Institute), work first had to be carried out in one room, heated by a smoking “potbelly stove.” Classes were held there, food (porridge) was prepared and children were washed. At the end of 1924, thanks to a letter sent to N.K. Krupskaya, Yulia Ivanovna managed to get a business trip abroad and visit Berlin, Jena, Leiden (where she met with Einstein in a private house), Amsterdam, Rome (where she had a very warm meeting with Montes-N.P. Wagner, St. Petersburg, 1882.
sorry) and Naples - in all these cities the Museum-Archive of D.I. Mendeleev worked “Montessor” schools.
After returning to Leningrad, Fausek discovered that during her absence, the Montessori system was greatly displaced in her kindergarten by “Soviet pedagogy.” “Montessorian principles have been violated, and the lessons are based on so-called “Soviet pedagogy,” that is, politics, politics and politics, and what politics! A real political literacy”33, recalled Yulia Ivanovna. At the beginning of 1925, a conference was held in Moscow to study the Montessori system, which resulted in a real trial, where Fausek was the main defendant. At the end of the last meeting, a decision was made to remove Montessori didactic material from kindergartens and introduce new - Soviet - material within six months. In the spring of the same year, an order was received from Moscow to close all Montessori kindergartens. Only as a result of another trip to Moscow and a meeting with Krupskaya, Fausek obtained permission to preserve the garden as an experimental one (the 80th Soviet kindergarten based on the Montessori system). In the official record of the Institute in 1925, Fausek was transformed from a professor into an associate professor, and from 1927 she was already listed as simply a teacher. She was constantly provoked to speak on topics deeply alien to her: “On political education,” “On anti-religious education,” “On polytechnicism in kindergartens.” And, of course, there Yulia Ivanovna spoke out in a completely different way than the management wanted. In the spring of 1930, the kindergarten finally ceased to be “Montessori”, and at the end of May Yu.I. Fausek said goodbye to her brainchild and work at the Institute forever34. Becoming without-
32 Units file 17. L. 42.
33 Units hr. 17. L. 107.
34 While working on the Montessori system, Yu.I. Fausek published several books that formed the basis domestic practice education according to this system: A month in Rome in the “Children's Houses” of Maria Motessori. Pg., 1915; Montessori method in Russia. Pg., 1924; Montessori kindergarten. Experiences and observations during twelve years of work in kindergartens
working, she knitted hats, sewed and embroidered linen... Attempts to return (to a certain extent) to her natural science past were unsuccessful: at the Institute of Plant Growing she was refused due to her age. At the Zoological Institute, director S.A. Zernov, who knew her husband well and was even friends with her brother, spoke very coldly and arrogantly to Fausek, without even inviting her to sit down, but still gave her a temporary job: writing labels and short annotations for museum display cases. Then she managed to get a job writing library cards at the Library technical books"on Nevsky Prospekt. The head of the library, a former university graduate, Savin treated Fausek with great respect; The job, however, was also temporary - only for 4 months. “I will never forget this dear man,” wrote Yulia Ivanovna. “He greeted me very kindly and, recognizing my first and last name, exclaimed: “My God, even such people should go and look for work!”<...>. What a difference between the attitude expressed to me by a famous scientist, an academician who knew my brother and husband well, and a simple librarian!”35
More information about any places of work of Yu. I. Fausek in the 30s. We were unable to find one from the 20th century - perhaps she continued to do odd jobs until the war36. This is all the more likely because at that time (1937) she was arrested and soon executed in Moscow. last son Nikolai, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, who worked in the field of rocket technology that had just begun to develop37. The Leningrad blockade brought an end to this life. Fortunately, its fragments were preserved by Yulia Ivanovna herself - they are in her memories. This is over 800 pages of text, written in clear handwriting and good literary language. Until now, only excerpts from them have been published in the book “Russian Scientists in Naples” and in the journal “St. Petersburg University”38. Meanwhile,
Montessori system. M.; L., 1926; Montessori grammar for young children. M.; L., 1928; How to work with Montessori materials. L., b.g. and other publications. For Fausek’s contribution to the development of children’s pedagogy, see: Petrova N.B. Pedagogical heritage of Yu.I. Fausek as an experience in implementing the M. Montessori system in domestic preschool pedagogy: abstract. dis. ...cand. ped. Sci. Smolensk, 2002; Fausek Yu.I. Pedagogy of Maria Montessori / ed. E. Hiltunen, D. Sorokov. M.: Genesis, 2007.
37 N.V. Fausek was at that moment a teacher at the Moscow aviation institute. Shot on March 15, 1938
38 Fokin S.I. Russian scientists in Naples. St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2006; Memory lives through the centuries // St. Petersburg University. 2007. No. 15, 18, 19. Most of memoirs was published
CM. Herzenstein. St. Petersburg, 1882. Museum-archive of D.I. Mendeleev
the memoirs contain valuable and, of course, reliable material about many of the above-mentioned (and not mentioned) famous Russian figures of science and culture late XIX- beginning of the 20th century. Introduction to scientific circulation These lively sketches for portraits of our famous compatriots will be of interest to both teachers and historians of science, and a wide range of readers.
Memories39
And so I came to the courses as a full-fledged student, and I was absorbed and stunned by thousands of impressions from my surroundings: lectures, professors, students, people in general, conversations, books, St. Petersburg streets, the Hermitage, theaters. All this, like an avalanche, rolled towards me in chaos, which I, still so small, a small girl both physically and mentally, could not understand at all. All this amazed and frightened rather than pleased my mind. And then there is longing, longing “for the homeland,” for the sea, the free air, the sun, the open space to which the eyes are accustomed, for loved ones, for dogs, and so on and so forth. The unfamiliar huge city with its stone houses squeezed me like a vice. I saw the Neva, which many years later I fell in love with St. Petersburg, and then it made a heavy impression on me: lead water, gray sky, and you can’t get close to the water, there is no shore, granite barriers are everywhere.
Little by little I got used to St. Petersburg, but in the spring the melancholy flared up with such force that I could not wait for the day and hour when I could go to Kerch for the holidays. But in Kerch at the end of the summer I was strongly drawn to St. Petersburg again, and I returned to it without melancholy and with pleasure. Nevertheless, “Kerch” (this word itself always sounded somehow special to me) remained for the rest of my life in my soul as the most beautiful, slightly fabulous corner of the globe, in which my childhood and early youth passed, not always joyful, but illuminated by the inner light of dreams and hopes. Kerch, St. Petersburg, Rome and Naples are the best cities for me that I have ever seen. They were destined to absorb my whole life.
In the summer, my partner died of consumption. She fell ill in the winter in St. Petersburg, went home and died in a village near Kerch<...>. The three Kerchan girls who graduated from the gymnasium with me were all on medical courses, but after Nadya’s death I was the only one at Bestuzhevsky.
On the way to St. Petersburg on the train, I met three girls from Ekaterinodar who were going to enroll in the Bestuzhev courses for the first time. We somehow immediately felt sympathy for each other and decided to move in together. On Furshtatskaya we found two rooms, in one of which G.’s sisters lived, in the other I lived with Lisa M., with whom I lived all the time until the end of the course40. At that time in St. Petersburg it was not difficult to find a room: almost every house had
in 2010: Sorokov D.G. Russian teacher. Family stories and the method of scientific pedagogy of Julia Fausek. M.: Forum, 2010.
39 Only selected fragments from the second part of “Memoirs” - “Bestuzhev courses, work, meetings” are published. OR RNB. F. 807. Unit. hr. 2. L. 270-399. The total volume of Fausek's memoirs is 883 sheets in units. hr. 1-4 and 17. Manuscript in 19 notebooks, in ink; started between 1936 and 1938. and the last notebook was completed in the autumn-winter of 1939. The entries devoted to the period 1866-1887 are chronological in nature, the rest describe individual periods of life or meetings with representatives of the creative intelligentsia at different times.
40 Higher women's courses, founded in 1878, were located until 1884 on Sergievskaya Street. on the second floor of E.A.'s house Botkina, wife of the famous physician S.P. Botkin (current address: Tchaikovsky St., 7).
K.S. Merezhkovsky. St. Petersburg, 1884. Museum-archive of D.I. Mendeleev
in areas where higher educational institutions were located, there were many tickets on the gates with advertisements for renting rooms. but the landladies, who willingly let students in, very often very impolitely slammed the door in the students’ faces<...>. In general, students in society at that time were looked at askance and with suspicion; female students - this was still new and had not become part of everyday life.<...>.
In this second year of my life in St. Petersburg, my life was somewhat easier financially: firstly, I always had lessons, and secondly, my cohabitants did not need - each of them received 20-25 rubles a month from their parents, which amounted to in those days, a decent amount of money, and I (earning 18-20 rubles a month) could always borrow from them when I didn’t have enough. In general, in those days, the budget of a young student (student or student) fluctuated on average between 15 and 30 rubles (there were, of course, those who received less, but there were very few of them, and they somehow got by with the help of their comrades). Fifteen rubles was not enough, and thirty for a student was almost wealth, but for a student 25-30 was only enough, since he, as a man, needed more food and even tobacco<...>.
The first year of my stay on the course was, in fact, almost completely lost for learning. For almost three months, thanks to the uncertainty of my situation, I did not listen well to lectures and did not study well. Thanks to poor nutrition, often almost a hunger strike, a southern woman’s complete unadaptedness to life in the north in terms of clothing (I remember how one winter I was making my way through the deep snow to the Champ de Mars in a light coat and Prunel boots without galoshes, it seemed to me that I was wandering through a snowy desert and I will never reach a warm shelter). Thanks to the penny lessons, which I had to spend a lot of time on, I studied in fits and starts, could not attend all the lectures, but by some miracle I still managed to pass the exams in the spring and move on to the second year<...>.
Having started talking about lessons, I can’t help but devote a few words to them. I lived on Furshtatskaya (now Voinova Street), and my first lesson was on Podolskaya (close to the Technological Institute). I had to walk every day. I left after lectures, often without finishing listening to one or two of them (lectures were given in two shifts due to the cramped space of the courses: from 9 am to 4-5 - for students of the physics, mathematics and natural history departments, and from 4 -5 to 10 pm for wordsmiths)<...>. This took a lot of time, and I returned home late, tired of clueless students and a long walk back and forth (I was paid 15 rubles during the lesson and I couldn’t spend it on a horse-drawn car). It was difficult to study, I wanted to sleep, and I only used for my studies in the morning hours(from 6-7 to 8 1/2) before lectures<...>. I only had two students left, and instead of fifteen rubles, they offered me eight rubles as a reward. For fear of being left completely without money, I had to agree before finding another lesson.
Soon I learned another lesson, very far away - on Vasilyevsky Island, at the end of Maly Prospekt, from a widow, a landlady. She had an only daughter, a quiet and affectionate eight-year-old girl, whom I was supposed to teach. The lesson was pleasant, but the ride
it was very far away. I walked to the beginning of Nevsky and at the Alexander Garden I got into a public sleigh (it was winter), which at that time was called “Forty Martyrs” by those who rode on it, and rode on it all the way to the house where my lesson was. A pair of shaggy horses, driven by a coachman in a warm overcoat with a lamb collar and a square hat with a fur trim, slowly trudged for almost an hour to my point. Two hours of travel in a sleigh and almost two hours of walking from Furshtatskaya Street to the Alexander Garden, and after giving three hours of classes, a total of six to seven hours a day was lost for my personal study.
I even liked riding the “Forty Martyrs” (at that time I could spend 6 kopecks every day on this ride, since I was paid 20 rubles during the lesson. I was interested in the riding itself (by that time I had a warm coat that my mother sent me , and galoshes); occupied by sleigh passengers: these were mostly old officials in frieze overcoats with capes - F.V. Ovsyannikov. St. Petersburg, 1882.
us and the amazing old ladies from the galleries - Museum-Archive of D. I. Mendeleev
Noah harbor in vast satin cloaks and bonnets
with large reticules in which they carried all sorts of things they acquired in the “city”. They went to visit, shop or pray to Isaac and the Kazan Cathedral<...>.
I had these lessons in the first year of my life in St. Petersburg. The next year, when I was already in my second year, I was immediately lucky: I learned a very good lesson in a family that I always remember<...>. I received 18 rubles and lunch per lesson, which in those days was considered excellent earnings, for five days of work (Saturday and Sunday were free). I spent about five hours in class, but spent much less time on moving: according to my means, I could ride in a horse-drawn horse<...>. I taught the children an hour before lunch and two to three hours after lunch. The children were very sweet and affectionate, but I spent half a day, and sometimes more, in class; I had two to three hours left for my personal classes, and it was Saturday and Sunday too<...>.
Returning again to the first year of my stay in St. Petersburg: two unforgettable facts from this time remained in my life. At the university and in our courses that year, the lectures of the philosopher, then still a private assistant professor, Vladimir Solovyov41 were extremely popular. They were constantly talked about, admired, and the auditoriums were always packed with listeners. With us, he taught the history of philosophy in the third year of the literature department, but all the other courses and other departments crowded his lectures and took places by battle (in the largest auditorium). I got hit twice too. I did not understand anything from what Solovyov read, but his appearance, manner of reading and his entire environment remained forever in my memory. He sat with his head bowed low; long wavy black hair fell on his pale ascetic face, illuminated by the flickering light of two candles under green rings.
41 Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900), major religious philosopher, Doctor of Philosophy ISPbU. A graduate of Moscow University and a volunteer student of the Moscow Theological Academy, at the All-Russian Residential Complex in 1879-1882. I read the history of ancient philosophy.
in batches. Closed eyes, crossed, white, like dead hands with long fingers, a dull, deep voice, fragmentary words, long pauses. And suddenly he stood up to his full tall, special height, looked around the audience with the piercing gaze of his large, seemingly huge eyes, extended his hand and, pointing somewhere into space, uttered a few words especially sharply and clearly and sat down again. There were cases when some very nervous people could not stand it and felt sick. Sometimes Solovyov, instead of a regular, current lecture, delivered an accusatory speech about some event in public life.
So one day (I just happened to attend such a lecture) he began to talk about the Jewish pogroms taking place at that time in the south; the speech, at first dull and abrupt, became more and more fiery, and the voice sounded like a bell, indignant and accusatory words against the government flowed uncontrollably. We were all deeply shocked and left the audience in silence, and Solovyov was ordered to leave St. Petersburg that same night. He left for the Khitrovo estate near Moscow, and a month later he was allowed to return and lecture again.
This was in December, and in March he had to leave St. Petersburg not for a month, but for a year, and for this reason. He gave a series of lectures, I don’t remember on what philosophy, in the hall of the Credit Society (next to the Public Library). A certain number of tickets were sent to us for courses. By a lucky chance, I also got a ticket to one such lecture. It was at the end of March (1881) in those days when the trial of the murderers of Alexander II (Zhelyabov, Perovskaya, etc.) took place. There was great excitement in society; in higher educational institutions (including ours) meetings took place every day - what the verdict would be.
I came to the lecture. There was a very diverse audience in the hall: many military men, smart ladies, students, female students. Solovyov came out and instead of another lecture he started talking about Christianity, about the fact that one should not take revenge, that Christ taught to forgive one’s enemies, to forgive all evil, no matter how great it was inflicted on us, that is, there is human judgment and there is judgment divine, and therefore the divine judgment must be recognized, and not human. That the trial of the regicides is now taking place, and, of course, the sentence will be the most severe, but the king, if he is a Christian, must forgive the criminals and give them life, and if he does not do this, then we will not get out of this circle of murders and will renounce the king (real words of Solovyov). Such is the in short words was the meaning of his speech. The lecture in hectographic form passed from hand to hand, we all copied it - I had it too (I kept it for a long time, then got lost). Solovyov barely managed to say last words, as an unimaginable noise arose, the majority hurried to leave as quickly as possible, the youth rushed forward to the pulpit, some officer raised his fists in the very face of the lecturer. Solovyov crossed his arms and calmly said: “I do not recognize the right of the fist, but if you want, hit.” The police entered the hall, dispersed those present, Solovyov was taken home, and the next day he was expelled from St. Petersburg - and we did not hear from him for a whole year.
Everyone was worried about the question of whether Solovyov’s words reached the tsar and how he would respond to them. Several days passed after Solovyov’s lecture, and the verdict against the regicides was pronounced:
NOT. Vvedensky. St. Petersburg, 1882. Museum-archive of D.I. Mendeleev
the death penalty. We were all depressed, but still hoped for forgiveness.
In one of last days March (I don’t remember the exact date, I think it was the 27th) early in the morning I went to class along Nadezhdinskaya (now Mayakovsky) street.
It was quiet, the city had not yet fully woken up. Suddenly I heard some noise behind me: human voices, the rumble of carts, and all this was drowned out by the beating of drums. Some people and policemen ran past me with leaflets in their hands, which they pasted on the walls of houses. I read: an announcement about the execution of regicides. It is impossible to express in words the confusion that took possession of me. People running past me pushed and pressed me against the wall. I jumped into the nearest entrance, where several people were already standing. and I saw (involuntarily saw) the entire terrible procession heading to the Semyonovsky parade ground. I saw everyone: Zhelyabova,
Perovskaya, Kibalchich42. Zhelyabov sat proudly. He tried to say something, but the drumming drowned out his words. I closed my eyes and, when the soldiers and the crowd passed by the entrance and cleared the way, I rushed headlong to run home to Furshtatskaya Street. My live-in girlfriend, roommate and medical student had not yet left home, and I brought them the terrible news. We sat shocked, unable to find words to express our feelings.
Andryusha Zhelyabov. A childhood memory arose before me: I was only six years old, Andryusha Zhelyabov studied at the Kerchin gymnasium, in the eighth grade, lived with the “mistress”, gave lessons to the son of General Nelidov (a local aristocrat). The general said: “Zhelyabov is a good young man, but funny and strange. I enter the room where he is studying with Seryozha, I say “hello,” and he puts his hands behind his back so as not to shake me; you see, I am a general, and he is a nihilist. Well, God be with him - let him be; He teaches Seryozhka well, he won’t teach him nihilism, he’s still young and a fool, he won’t understand.” The general was good-natured.
At one time, an old aunt, my mother’s elder sister, lived in our house, and my cousin’s aunt had high school students living in her apartment: one of them was Misha May-Boroda, later a famous Russian opera singer in St. Petersburg. This Misha often came running to my aunt during the big break at the gymnasium, bringing his comrades with him: they helped her chop coal for the stove, and she fed them breakfast. Sometimes Zhelyabov also came. I remember how my family praised him, saying: “What a good boy Andryusha, how handsome!”
One day I was standing at the gate of our yard. Suddenly the gate opened, and a tall, curly-haired high school student entered the yard - it was Andryusha Zhelyabov. Seeing me, he grabbed me in his arms and
put him on his back. “Hold on tight,” he said. “Now we’ll rush as fast as we can.”
I grabbed his neck, and he began to jump all over the yard until Auntie and Misha called him to have breakfast. My God, today I saw it. no, it’s impossible to tell what I was experiencing in those hours!
42 Andrei Ivanovich Zhelyabov (1851-1881), Sofia Lvovna Perovskaya (1853-1881), Nikolai Ivanovich Kibalchich (1853-1881) - populist revolutionaries, members of the revolutionary terrorist organization " People's will", the leader and perpetrators of the assassination attempt on Alexander II, were executed in St. Petersburg on April 3, 1881.
THEM. Sechenov. St. Petersburg, 1882. Museum-archive of D.I. Mendeleev
We went to courses. The meeting taking place there was in full swing. Stasova and the professors, concerned, left the professor's room, but did not try to interfere, knowing that nothing would come of it. Stasova was only afraid that the police would come in, but, fortunately, she was late. The students began to disperse, and when there were only a few of them left, Andrei Nikolaevich Beketov, whom everyone deeply respected (he, in fact, was the founder and head of our courses), asked all those remaining to disperse quickly and ordered the courses to be closed for three days. We experienced the closure of the courses as mourning, and three days later we began studying again.
Another event left a memory forever. This is Dostoevsky's funeral on February 2, 1881. He died at the end of January (I think on the 28th). All the student youth stayed at his apartment. Both day and night until the funeral, students were on duty at his coffin. Among the funeral directors was the writer Grigorovich; while telling me in what order we should go in the procession, he mechanically grabbed me by the button of my coat and fiddled with it throughout his speech. It’s funny to remember now, but when I got home, I cut off this button and hid it in a box. The button that the writer was holding (I saw a living writer for the first time then)! It is clear that she should have rested untouched, and not worn out on the coat. Only ten years ago I somehow came across this box, preserved by chance, with a button and two laurel leaves - one from a wreath for Dostoevsky, the other from a wreath for Garshin (I took them as a souvenir), and I burned them in the stove.
I remember what an unforgettable impression Dostoevsky’s funeral made on me. Quietly, solemnly, the procession moved, accompanied by a mass of people, to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra: no police, not a single policeman, neither horse nor foot. Students from various educational institutions, holding hands, formed a chain around the entire procession. So we reached the very gates of the monastery.
Professors. The founder of the Higher Women's Courses was considered to be K.N. Bestuzhev, they were called the Bestuzhevskys, but in fact they were founded by Andrei Nikolaevich Beketov (botanist) together with N.V. Stasova, writer E.I. Conradi and a group of several university professors, among whom was Sechenov. The courses were called Bestuzhev because the initiators asked Bestuzhev to become the head of the courses as a scientist-historian, quite reliable, while Beketov could not boast of this, and the Society, which in 1878 submitted a petition to the Highest name to open courses from Bestuzhev's representatives received permission for this, and Bestuzhev became their leader. True, we must give him justice - he was very interested in this new matter, which at that time had deep social significance; attracted several people to him famous professors, historians and literature scholars, and he himself taught Russian history in the literature department of courses. But the soul of the courses, except N.V. Stasova, there was Andrei Nikolaevich Beketov, who gave them a lot of time, care and attention. He was the chairman of the Society for Providing Funds for Higher Women's Courses and taught botany in the first year of the natural history department. He, of course, gave lectures free of charge; yes, however, at that time all professors taught courses for free.
M.A. Russian. St. Petersburg, 1883. Museum-archive of D.I. Mendeleev
Bestuzhev behaved formally towards female students (he had only a small group of senior students whom he favored and helped work scientifically), Beketov was available to every student who needed advice or help, and not a single one left him unheard. He was simple and friendly in his manner, and he was loved. I remember well his lush gray hair and thoughtful, kind eyes with half-closed eyelids. If his grandson A. Blok lived to old age, then I think he would look like Andrei Nikolaevich.
Beketov's lectures (he taught the morphology and taxonomy of plants in our first year) were not particularly brilliant. He read monotonously, and many found them boring, but I always loved plants and listened with attention to his lectures, which were serious and very informative, and forever instilled in me a love of botany. Beketov founded a small botanical garden and greenhouse at the university, where he took us from time to time to demonstrate his lectures.
Beketov's lectures were always accompanied by rich visual material (herbariums, tables, etc.), which were always brought by the attendant who always accompanied him from the botanical office of the university, famous among other ministers and students - Ivan. Everyone at the university knew this Ivan. Soon he became popular among us in the courses.
Ivan was inseparable from Andrei Nikolaevich, and when the latter was an officer in military service, Ivan was his orderly. He knew Latin names many plants and, heating the stove in the office, put birch firewood in it, saying: “Betula alba.” On excursions at the university botanical garden in front walked a group of students with Beketov at the head, and behind was a group with Ivan, and he, calling various plants(always in Latin), described their origin and meaning with the addition of various episodes that occurred during their planting: “When Andrei Nikolaevich and I were planting this plant, professor so-and-so moved to a government apartment at the university,” or “associate professor so-and-so got married" and others. Ivan always said: “Andrei Nikolaevich and I. When we served as officers, Andrei Nikolaevich and I were handsome men.” Sometimes during Beketov's lecture (at the university), Ivan remained outside the classroom door. Several students gathered around him, and he told them various university stories. At first he spoke quite quietly, but then louder and louder, and his voice carried into the audience. Then Andrei Nikolaevich fell silent and asked one of the students to go calm Ivan down. “Tell him,” Beketov said, “can he stop his lecture, since now I will start.”
During the courses, such antics rarely happened to Ivan, but I once witnessed how he argued with the assistant professor of anatomy and physiology Ovsyannikov about whose professor reads better. “Well, what about your professor, he doesn’t read, he mumbles,” said Ivan. To which the other objected: “And yours is reading, as if he’s sleeping.” “Well, for me,” Ivan did not let up, “even if you put on a samovar and pile up a bunch of rolls, I won’t go listen to your professor, and in your office there is nothing but nasty things in jars - intestines and kidneys.” “And I won’t listen to yours even for a bottle of vodka.”
V.A. Fausek. St. Petersburg, 1887(?) From: Bogdanov, 1891
professor." I don’t know how this argument ended, since I had to hurry (it happened on the landing of the stairs).
Somov, Ovsyannikov’s servant, was also a significant personality. He, like Ivan, was devoted to his professor and took great care that male and female students answered well in anatomy exams. In order not to carry heavy jars of drugs from the university, he himself organized during the courses (with the permission of N.V. Stasova) a small anatomy room, equipped with all the necessary materials for lectures and our classes. He knew the drugs very well and, when we were preparing for the exam, he explained to us the structure of the heart, kidneys, etc. “Learn everything well, young ladies,” he said instructively, “so as not to embarrass our old man, he is a respectable and great scientist, but what about Professor Ivan? What is he reading? Trifles - flowers and berries - is this really science? And here man is the king of nature. Without a person, everything is nonsense; Ivan is a good person, but he doesn’t understand much about science.” Somov and Ivan, in essence, were great friends and drank together.
I started with nerds, and I will continue to talk about them. In my second year I read botany (continued Beketov’s course) famous Ivan Parfenevich Borodin. His lectures were distinguished by the beauty and brilliance of their presentation, and his audience was always crowded. Not only natural science students went to listen to Borodin, but also literature students, since his lectures gave listeners true pleasure.
Ivan Parfenevich accompanied his lectures with excellent preparations, tables and live plants from the greenhouse of the Forestry Institute, where he was a professor. He himself was very good at drawing various plants on a black board with colored chalk to illustrate his lectures, and he really appreciated those listeners who also knew how to draw. I remember with pride that I was one of them, filling my notebooks with drawings. During the exam, Borodin was very strict: he demanded real knowledge, an accurate and clear presentation of the question. He was very witty and often joked during his lectures, which did not interfere with the seriousness of what was being presented.
In the third year, we were taught anatomy and physiology of plants by a very famous scientist, Andrei Sergeevich Famintsyn. He was also an excellent lecturer, but in a different way than Borodin. Very serious, even stern by nature (I met him occasionally later in the house of my friends, in the family of the academician mathematician Imshenetsky), with whose daughter I was friends, he treated his listeners with some kind of severity: there had to be absolute silence during his lectures , at the slightest knock, creaking desk, loud cough, Famintsyn winced and cast dissatisfied glances in the direction from which the sound came.
Entering the classroom when the lecture had already begun or leaving it before the end, which could have been done without hindrance by Beketov, who simply did not notice it, was impossible to even think about. We strictly observed order and always hurried to take our seats on time and sit, almost not breathing when Famintsyn entered the audience. The first impression was the most important for him. Students at the university felt the same way about his lectures.
Once there was such a case: ten minutes passed from the start of the lecture. There was complete silence in the audience. Suddenly the door creaked and began to open slowly, continuing to creak. Famintsyn turned his head towards the door with a stern look and fell silent. A late listener entered the audience and began to slowly make her way along the wall. “Please,” said Famintsyn’s sharp voice, “leave the audience, you are bothering me.” The student stopped indecisively. ““I ask you again,” said Famintsyn. The student did not move. “In that case, I will go out,” and Famintsyn moved away from the department (he always read standing and not on the department, but on the floor, leaning his hand on it) - “No, no,” the student said quickly, “I’d better go out,” and hurriedly went to the door. Famintsyn suddenly laughed: “No, it’s better (he emphasized) sit down quickly and remember once and for all that it’s a shame to interfere with the lecturer.” and bad manners."
During the exam, Famintsyn recognized the ill-fated student. She answered all his questions very well. “Excuse me,” he turned to her, “for the lesson that I gave you, remember, at one of the lectures, but you deserved it, didn’t you? Now you deserve all the praise.” And Famintsyn gave her a “very” rating.
Subsequently, I learned from the Imshenetskys that Famintsyn had lost his only son, twelve years old, who had already helped him on his scientific excursions, and I understood his severity43.
Famintsyn had an assistant, Pyotr Nikolaevich Krutitsky. He taught us practical classes on plant anatomy and treated these classes with great zeal. He taught us how to make thin sections of various plant tissues, process them for preparations, and use a microtome. We had to sketch the preparations and take notes. Krutitsky was strict and pedantic: when we came to classes (in groups of no more than 15 people), microscopes, material for processing, razors, scissors, etc. were on the tables for each worker, and we had to ring the bell to enter the office and immediately begin work. He also did not allow latecomers in; no one dared to enter after the bell rang: he shouted and stomped his feet<...>. Krutitsky was specially engaged in algae, and when I brought him algae from Kerch Sea of Azov, well prepared, he was very pleased. “That’s good, thank you.”<...>.
The zoology of invertebrates was read to us by Nikolai Petrovich Wagner, a famous scientist who first discovered the phenomenon of “pedogenesis” and wrote a large monograph “Invertebrates White Sea", who, together with the famous botanist Tsenkovsky, established a biological station on the White Sea in Solovki, where he worked for many years, becoming its director. In addition to zoology, Wagner was also engaged in writing, composing fairy tales (his “Tales of the Purring Cat” are known), stories and novels, as well as psychology and the phenomena of mediumship (together with Butlerov, but Butlerov approached these phenomena scientifically, as a researcher, critically, in Wagner fantasy prevailed)44. Wagner read entertainingly and picturesquely, demonstrating his lectures with excellent preparations and tables, which his minister, Samuel, brought from the university zoology office.
This Samuel was always present at Wagner's lectures, quickly hanging a table on the board or handing over a jar of medicine when he heard the words addressed to him: “Samuel, Aurelia
43 According to the published biography of A.S. Famintsyn (Stroganov B.P. Andrei Sergeevich Famintsyn. M.: Nauka, 1996), from marriage with O.M. Aleeva in 1880, the Famintsins gave birth to a daughter (1882) and a son (1891). Perhaps Andrusova meant her son from her first marriage, about whom we know nothing.
44 Wagner himself, on the contrary, considered himself a supporter scientific research this phenomenon, although the work of a special commission under the Physical Society, created for the scientific verification of spiritualistic “miracles” of D.I. Mendeleev in 1875, did not satisfy him.
The building of the Higher Bestuzhev Courses on Sergievskaya Street. (Tchaikovsky St.), no. 7. Early 80s of the 19th century.
Museum of the History of St. Petersburg State University
aurita" or some other name of the animal. Samuel knew all their Latin names. Wagner said in the university office: “Samuel, I’m going to a lecture at the Bestuzhev courses, collect for me “ringed worms” or “cephalopods,” etc., and Samuel collected everything without error.
Wagner was distinguished by his eccentricities45: for example, when lecturing to female students, he always addressed them with the word “mesdames”: “At the last lecture, mesdames; please note, mesdames; mesdames, today I will talk about the nervous system of the crayfish,” etc. This mesdames was always on his tongue. Even at the university he addressed students with the words “mesdames”. Samuel imitated him and also called us mesdames, even if he spoke to one and not to many.
Wagner always wore a shabby frock coat, an old coat, some kind of red hat, which the students said was made “from the fur of a green monkey,” and a blue plaid. This blanket was once dark blue, but has faded over time. On cold days, Wagner wore this blanket not only outside, but also in the classroom. There was gossip about his attire, as if at one of the mediumistic sessions the spirits predicted that Wagner would live three years, and he sewed clothes for himself with the expectation of three years, but thirteen years passed, and he was still living and did not get new clothes, waiting every year of death.
One day Wagner came to our lecture without a collar; Instead, he had a rather dirty handkerchief tied around his neck, the ends of which stuck out from one side like two rabbit ears. We looked at him in surprise. “You are surprised, mesdames,” said Wagner, interrupting the lecture for a moment. “This, of course, seems strange to you, but the spirits this morning forbade me to wear a collar, and I had to use a handkerchief instead.” Another time he appeared with one mustache shaved, and the other sticking out randomly in all directions. It was terribly difficult not to laugh when Wagner, walking around the audience, turned to us now the right, now the left side of his face, now with a mustache, now without a mustache. Someone burst out laughing. Wagner looked at everyone, smiling through his glasses, and said: “What can I do, mesdames, I look funny, but it’s not my fault. I started shaving in the morning, shaved off one mustache, and the perfume said “enough,” and I had to stop this activity.” So he walked around for several days with only one shaved mustache. Wagner came to the next lecture clean-shaven, the perfume must have allowed it.
When, after completing my courses, I was working in the zoological office of the university, one day Samuel brought a jar of alcohol in which lay a rather shabby burbot. “Nikolai Petrovich ordered a special label to be glued to this jar and placed in his closet,” said Samuel. - Yesterday evening they were sitting, suddenly the “medum” (medium) muttered something, and it was dark, and a fish plopped onto the table (I stood at the door and peeked through the crack). Nikolai Petrovich gave me this fish - the burbot turned out to be fragrant (Samuel smiled slyly) - and told me to keep it.” We laughed and looked at the “otherworldly” burbot with curiosity.
When I was a teacher at the Stoyunina gymnasium, Wagner’s daughter, a girl of about twelve46, entered there. I was a teacher in her class. The girl told all sorts of miracles: “I couldn’t write yesterday, my inkwell flew away, things often fly around here - for example, a book lies on the table and suddenly flies to another table,” or “And this year we will go to the dacha in Yukki, the table said (table spinning),” etc.
45 This personality trait of the famous zoologist was also noted by others who remembered him: see V.M. Shimkevich. Modern chronicle. N.P. Wagner and N.N. Polezhaev (from the memoirs of a zoologist) // Journal of the Ministry of Public Education 1908. New. ser. 16. Dept. 4. P. 1-18; Nikolsky A.M. From the memoirs of a zoologist... P. 86-87.
46 U N.P. Wagner had three daughters, we are obviously talking about the youngest - Nadezhda, born in 1876.
The main entrance to the building of the Imperial St. Petersburg University. 1880
Museum-archive of D. I. Mendeleev
Practical classes on Wagner's course were taught in our second year by Nikolai Evgenievich Vvedensky, the future famous physiologist, Sechenov's student, and then still his young assistant and at the same time Wagner's assistant in our courses: simultaneously with physiology, Vvedensky was also studying invertebrate zoology. We received much more knowledge from Vvedensky than from Wagner,47 and I was especially interested in these studies.
In the second year, vertebrate zoology was taught by the famous scientist and traveler, Modest Nikolaevich Bogdanov. A great connoisseur and passionate lover of nature, in his lectures he did not limit himself to a simple anatomical description of animals, but colorfully and fascinatingly described the environment and conditions in which they lived, their customs, hunting for this or that animal or bird, and so on. Modest N[ikolaevich] loved birds very much, and in his office at the university there was an aviary filled with songbirds, where he invited us from time to time to admire his pets. In his apartment he also had many cages with various of our northern birds, which he gave shelter for the winter, and in the spring he himself went out of town, sometimes quite far, and released his pets into the wild. From him I learned a lot of interesting things about the simplest birds: sparrows, crows, pigeons, etc. Bogdanov was friendly with Wagner, but never shared his spiritualistic hobbies and ravings.
Bogdanov’s course (vertebrate zoology) was taught in the third year by his assistant Solomon Markovich Herzenstein. Solomon Markovich was the curator of the zoological museum of the Academy of Sciences and an assistant in the zoological office of the university. Despite his short life(he died at the age of 39), he did a lot in the field of studying mollusks, and most importantly
47 This is the general opinion of those who remembered N.P. Wagner during the period when he headed the Zootomy Cabinet of ISPbU: see Fokin S.I. Russian scientists in Naples... P. 281.
fish of the White Sea48. He was a man wholly and completely devoted to his science. He spent whole days and even nights in the museum of the Academy of Sciences, distracting himself only for a short time to study at our courses, for rare visits to friends and concerts (he was a great lover of music).
S[olomon] M[arkovich] was very ugly, with small, very short-sighted eyes and the longest nose, crooked, twisted legs. He walked with big unsteady steps, waved his arms, and people joked about him that he turned corners ahead of time, and therefore always ran into a wall. S[olomon] M[arkovich] taught us with great diligence, sparing no time and with extreme conscientiousness. Like Krutitsky, he taught us to work methodically, taught us great accuracy and careful finishing of each task. In addition to the finely finished preparation, we had to provide him with an accurate schematic drawing and a detailed description of it. I was always grateful to both Herzenstein and Krutitsky for their studies: they brought me a lot of benefit in my further studies.
S[olomon] M[arkovich] was very short-sighted, he often lost things and could not find them. At the end of classes, we helped him put away the preparations, instruments, microscopes, etc. I always stayed longer than others in his classes, since I was generally interested in zoology last year, and Vvedensky called me a “specialist.” As such, I went to Herzenstein and studied diligently with him. He gave me work beyond the program, gave me books and often invited me to the Museum of the Academy of Sciences, where he showed me what particularly interested me. I could only make such visits holidays(and for S[olomon] M[arkovich] holidays did not exist), since on weekdays I did not have enough time for this. Subsequently, I met S[olomon] M[arkovich] outside the courses (at N.V. Stasova), and when I got married, he became our great friend, both mine and my husband’s, and remained so until his death .
He usually came to us twice a month at lunchtime or in the evening. When leaving, he always took out his notebook, thought for a minute and said: “Now I will come to you on February 25 at 6 o’clock” and wrote down this date in the book. On the appointed date, at exactly 6 o’clock in the evening, the bell rang and S[olomon] M[arkovich] entered. When leaving, he again wrote down the date and hour of his next visit (March 10, at 8 p.m., April 5 at 5 p.m., etc.) and always appeared punctually at the recorded time.
On New Year's Day, a messenger brought me a gift from S[olomon] M[arkovich]. It was always a notebook in a beautiful, always red, binding with a calendar and all sorts of indexes. Only once did he change his custom and, instead of a book, sent me nut tongs, and this happened for this reason: S[olomon] M[arkovich] was very fond of apricot jam and loved to eat apricot kernels. I had this kind of jam, but there were no tongs, and he couldn’t crack the seeds. He very much reproached me for the lack of tongs and, as if in reproach, sent them to me on New Year's Day as a gift. But on January 3 (at the hour appointed by him) he came to us and brought me a notebook. S[olomon] M[arkovich] was a very educated and versatile person: it was very pleasant to talk with him and listen to his interesting stories and discussions about various subjects.
He was extremely absent-minded, and a lot of jokes were told about his absent-mindedness. For example (this actual fact, about which he himself spoke), one day he stayed working in the museum until late at night. Not wanting to detain the attendant, he let him go, saying that the museum itself was prohibited and would open it tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock. The attendant left, S[olomon] M[arkovich] locked
48 S.M. Herzenstein (1854-1894), a native of Kherson, from a Jewish merchant family; graduate of ISPbU 1875; since 1880, scientific curator of the Zoological Museum of the ISPbAN.
door from the inside, put the key in his pocket and began to work. At 2 o'clock in the morning he finished work and got ready to leave. Approaching the door, he found it locked. (He completely forgot that the key was in his pocket). "What to do? Semyon locked me up and left,” he decided. - How to get Seeds? Above the museum was the apartment of the director of the zoological museum of the Academy of Sciences, old Strauch, and above the office of Sol[omon] M[arkovich] was his bedroom. S[olomon] M[arkovich] puts another smaller table on the table, a stool on it, picks up a mop and starts pounding on the ceiling with it. Old Strauch wakes up from the noise, wakes up his lackey and sends him to the museum to see what happened there. The footman comes to the door and knocks. Solomon]
M[arkovich] asks him to go wake up Semyon.
Semyon comes: “What’s the matter?” - “You locked me and took the key away.” “The key is in your pocket,” answers Semyon. Sol[omon] Mark[ovich], terribly embarrassed, asks Semyon and the footman, and the next day from Strauch, for forgiveness. Everyone loved and forgave him.
Another time there was such a case: The Salomon M[arkovich] family (mother and sisters), with whom he lived, changed apartments. Immediately after the move, S[olomon] M[arkovich] went to the academy.
Having finished work, he got ready to go home; It was already 12 o'clock. night, and suddenly he forgot his address new apartment. What to do? Instead of going to the old apartment, which was a stone's throw from the academy, and asking the doorman, who knew where the Herzensteins had moved, he decided to go to his friend, the sailor Biryukov, who was helping them transport their things. But here’s the problem - S[olomon] M[arkovich] forgot Biryukov’s address (not the street, but the house and apartment number). Then he goes on foot to the Admiralty, wakes up the guard and at the information desk of the duty officer, despite the fact that everyone scolds him, he finds out Biryukov’s address. From there he goes on foot again - (there were no trams yet, and the horse-drawn cars stopped working at 12 o'clock at night) to Nikolaevskaya (now Marata Street), calls (it was already 2 o'clock in the morning), scares everyone in the apartment, bursts into a friend's room: “ Tell me, where have we moved? - Biryukov bursts into laughter, gets dressed, takes S[olomon] M[arkovich] out into the street, puts him in a cab and takes him home to his alarmed family: it was already four o’clock in the morning, and S[olomon] M[arkovich] promised to return at 10 o’clock. evenings. S[olomon] M[arkovich]'s salary was always received by his mother: he himself either forgot the money somewhere in his office, hid it so that he could not find it, or lost it.
His mother told me that little “Lema” was just as absent-minded. One day she gave him three rubles to buy tea and sugar. He was 9 years old, and they lived in Kherson. Lema was crossing the ditch and suddenly saw some fish in it; he sat down on the edge of the groove, put 3 rubles (a piece of paper) on the ground and began to watch the fish. An hour, two, three passed, and still no sign of Lema. His sister, a year younger than him, went to look for him and found him sitting by the ditch, silently contemplating the fish. No tea, no sugar, and the three-ruble note floated far away. Lema forgot everything.
Human anatomy was read to us by Philip Vasilievich Ovsyannikov, who was a university professor and, as an academician, was in charge of the anatomical museum of the Academy of Sciences. Ovsyannikov
Yu. I. Fausek (center) among graduates and teachers of the preschool department of the Pedagogical Institute named after. A.I. Herzen. Leningrad, 1925 Museum of History of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after. A.I. Herzen
he loved the courses very much, and although his lectures were rather boring, we attended them conscientiously (in the second year), since we saw his disappointment when the class was not full. At that time, most of us were imbued with a feeling of deep respect and gratitude to all the professors, knowing their excellent attitude and good desire to do everything possible so that women's education would reach its proper height and win its rights. Ovsyannikov’s assistant, Vladimir Nikolaevich Velikiy, taught us histology classes49.
In the third year, Nikolai Evgenievich Vvedensky began to read to us plant physiology of man. This was in 1883. He was young then and was not yet not only a professor, but also a private assistant professor (although he had already spent three years in exile). He became an associate professor in 1884 and began lecturing at the university. Sechenov began a course in physiology with us, but due to lack of time and illness, he transferred it to Vvedensky, who, preparing to become a private assistant professor and receive lectures at the university, studied with us; Subsequently, he himself said that the Higher Women's Courses were his professorial school.
He made every effort to make his lectures thorough and interesting, and he succeeded quite well. We did not suspect what a great scientist not only here, but also in Europe, Nikolai Evgenievich is preparing from Nikolai Evgenievich, we slightly laughed at his demeanor, at his characteristic speech. Vvedensky was short, broad-shouldered, rather awkward, with a cowlick constantly falling on his forehead, and an ugly but very expressive face. He came to our first lecture in a tailcoat, which sat rather awkwardly on it, and in a white tie. For Nikolai Evgenievich] it was a solemn day: he ascended the pulpit for the first time. I remember how by chance, without any intention, I spied a funny scene in which Vvedensky was rehearsing his first performance.
I sat in the lower hall in a corner at the table and did something. Suddenly Vvedensky came in from the side doors so that he could not see me. There was no one in the hall except me. He quickly walked up to a large mirror set into the wall, threw back his cowlick, bowed and began making various gestures with his hands. Then, throwing back his cowlick again, he said: “Dear ladies.” I became afraid that when he turned around he would see me, and I slowly hid under the table. The bell calling for a lecture saved the situation: Vvedensky quickly left, I crawled out from under the table and ran into the classroom. Vvedensky ascended the pulpit and, despite all his efforts to act dignified, was terribly embarrassed and said his “gracious madam” in an intermittent voice. Then, gradually gaining control of himself, he delivered the lecture very well and was rewarded with loud applause. Many years later, when I had to meet him as an acquaintance, I told him this episode. He laughed a lot. “If only you knew,” he said. - How terribly I was worried, how afraid I was of all of you, much more afraid than of the students, and how delighted I was by your applause. What a good thing you did to hide under the table.”<...>.
Nikolai Evgenievich was the son of a priest of some village in the Vologda province, he studied at a theological seminary, after which he went into exile, where he stayed for three years, and then, upon his release, he entered St. Petersburg University50. After graduating from university, he worked in Sechenov’s laboratory and was his assistant. Staying in the seminary and in exile imposed
49 V.N. Velikiy (1851-1917?), graduate of ISPbU (1874), student of F.V. Ovsyannikov, later a professor and rector of Tomsk University, worked in Kyiv from 1903.
50 Here Yulia Ivanovna changed the order of events in Vvedensky’s life. It is possible that she did not know exactly the history of his participation in the “trial of the 193s,” according to which he, as a student, was arrested in 1874 for revolutionary propaganda among the peasants and spent 3 years in prison. Later (1879) Nikolai Evgenievich was able to graduate from the university.
Vvedensky had his own imprint: he was shy, but rude, which was especially reflected in his speech. He used words such as “with tails, with arms, with legs, swim, jump, climb (these are animals that swim).” Addressing one of us, he would say: “Well, how are you, young lady” (he pronounced this “young lady” slightly contemptuously). The “young lady” was offended: “I’m not a young lady, I’m a student.” “Well, okay, student,” Vvedensky agreed.
He spoke as if on purpose, maintaining his Vologda pronunciation and not wanting to get rid of it. Subsequently, having found himself in the society of the high St. Petersburg intelligentsia, he dressed, as was customary, in a black frock coat, sometimes in a tailcoat, wore gloves, courted young ladies, not students, tried to express himself gracefully, but at lectures he remained “with his tails, with eyes, swim and jump.”
There was an unsuccessful romance in the life of Nikolai Evgenievich: he, being a private assistant professor at the university, gave lessons in anatomy and physiology to one very rich girl, a well-known millionaire at that time, Sibiryakova. He fell in love with her, became very attached to her, showing his feelings so clearly that everyone noticed it, suffered for four years, and nothing came of it. He never married and died a bachelor, devoting his entire life to science.
Having mentioned Sibiryakova, I would like to say a few words about this outstanding girl who has done a lot of good in her life. She was ugly and had no talents, was very shy and obsessed with the idea that people were not attracted to her, but to her millions, and therefore she was very suspicious. She looked at the men caring for her with fear. “They like my wallet, not me,” she told the artist’s wife Yaroshenko, to the only person, with whom she was completely frank. Maria Pavlovna (Yaroshenko’s wife) knew about Vvedensky’s love, she knew that Sibiryakova liked him, but she could not help them in any way, not being able to overcome her suspicion and his fear that she would suspect him of self-interest, of love for her millions, and not to herself. Sibiryakova gave a lot of money to the Higher Women's Courses, to the cash desk of the University Students' Assistance Society, the Technological Institute, and the Lesgaft Institute was founded with her funds51. When, under the Minister of Public Education, General Glazov (188?),52 the Higher Women's Courses were temporarily closed, their own new house on Vasilyevsky Island, where the courses moved in 1884, was to become the property of the Credit Society (where the house was mortgaged and the money for ransom
51 Money for the organization of P.F. Lesgaft Biological Laboratory with a Natural Science Museum and “Courses for female students and leaders of physical education” were given by his student I.M. Sibiryakov (1860-1901), a famous industrialist and philanthropist, brother of A.M. Sibiryakova.
52 This episode in the memoirs of Yu.I. Fausek does not agree well with known facts. Lieutenant General V.G. Glazov (1948-1920) was Minister of Public Education in 1904-1905. Admission to the DRC was temporarily closed in 1886-1889. under Minister I.D. Delyanov (1817-1897), who was in this position from 1882 to 1897, but the residential residential complexes were already in a new building on the 10th line of Vasilyevsky Island since 1885. According to the memoirs, it turns out that the courses were closed from 1884 to 1885, which is not confirmed in the literature. Probably, they were talking only about financial problems associated with the construction of a new building in 1883-1885. Indeed A.M. Sibiryakova was one of the most generous patrons of the arts of that time.
Yu.I. Fausek (in the center of the bottom row). Leningrad, early 30s of the XX century. Museum of History of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after. A.I. Herzen
there were no courses), Sibiryakova paid off the entire debt to the Society and took the house for herself. When the Courses were allowed again a year later, Sibiryakova donated it to the “Society for Promoting Higher Women’s Courses.” All the time that the courses were not functioning, both the house and the equipment were carefully guarded with the assistance of the same Sibiryakova.
In the fourth year, Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov taught us the physiology of the nervous system. Not everyone who entered the first year made it to the fourth year (there were only a few of us, no more than a hundred), and the lectures took place in a small, cozy classroom. I will never forget either the lectures or Sechenov himself at the department. It seemed that he was looking somewhere into space with his black, piercing eyes and did not see anything around, and yet he saw everything; for example: on the side of the department by the window there was a table on which his assistant prepared preparations for lectures, the objects of which were mainly frogs. Assistant Bronislav Fortunatovich Verigo, later a famous scientist-physiologist, was very slow in his actions53. One day, Sechenov, while giving a lecture, without looking in Verigo’s direction, suddenly turned to him: “It’s enough for you, my friend, to mock the poor thing, finish it off quickly.” He saw us too: “Oh, I know you,” he said to the student during the exam. “You always sat in the corner by the stove, listening well.” Or - “You, like a matchmaker, changed all the places, now on one desk, then on another, and this bothered me, I like there to be order.” “What should I do, Ivan Mikhailovich,” said the student. “If you’re late, they’ll take your place.” - “You shouldn’t be late, but the one who took your place did not do well, you need to respect your comrades,” etc.
There was no severity in these remarks of Sechenov; on the contrary, there was always gentleness and affection in them. They said (eyewitnesses) that during an exam at the university he asked one student, a Georgian, being examined: “Who are you, my friend, going to be?” “Doctor,” answered the student. “So, my dear, it’s easier for you to be a bishop than a doctor; it’s better to go to the theological academy.” I remember once an incident at Sechenov’s lecture that reminded me of a similar one at Mendeleev’s lecture in my first year. Sechenov was reading, one student was coughing, and no matter how hard she tried to suppress her cough, it still escaped from her chest. Then she got up and began to slowly make her way along the wall to the exit. Sechenov, without stopping talking, followed the student with his eyes and suddenly said: “Please sit down and listen, and cough for your health as much as you want; The cough doesn’t bother me, but the fact that you’re leaving is disrupting the order.”
Sechenov’s lectures were distinguished by their clarity and clarity, and they contained expressions and words unique to him, for example: “As long as I irritate her, as long as she (the frog) will croak,” or “He (the air) will just scurry into the test tube.” or “And saliva is the rein, the rein,” etc.
I remember when I finished the course, we, according to accepted custom, had an evening within the walls of the course (on Vasilyevsky Island). We did not send invitations to professors, but two or three of us (according to elections) went to their apartments to invite them personally. I had the honor of being among those inviting Sechenov. “I am very grateful to you, I will certainly do so,” Ivan Mikhailovich told us. “I just tearfully ask you one thing: don’t invite me to dance, I love this way of acting extremely, one might even say I adore it, but I can’t do it, it’s harmful.” We promised not to invite him to the dance, but when the pianist started playing a waltz, Nadezhda Vasilievna Stasova approached Sechenov: “Ivan Mikhailovich, let’s open the ball.” Sechenov was unable to do so, and his deep respect for Nadezhda Vasilyevna and good manners did not allow him to refuse, and the wonderful couple performed several rounds of the waltz to delighted applause.
All evening, a group of students listened with pleasure to Sechenov’s stories between dances. No one invited him to dance, remembering his word, but at the end of the evening the tapper began to play
53 B.F. Verigo (1860-1925), graduate of ISPbU, electrophysiologist, student of I.M. Sechenov, later prof. Novorossiysk and Perm universities.
Mazurka In my youth I loved dancing and especially loved the mazurka and, they said, I danced it well. “Oh, there are cramps in my legs,” said Sechenov. “Mazurka, it’s a divine dance.” I dared, something definitely pushed me, and I don’t remember how I turned to Sechenov with a request to “dance a little, a little.” “Oh, villainess, I can’t resist, but what if God punishes you for temptation?” - “Let him punish.” And we danced the mazurka, and Sechenov, stamping his foot (he danced very well), said: “And I am a nobleman, and I have learned this.” The next morning, tormented by my conscience and fear for Ivan Mikhailovich’s health, I ran to the courses to find out about his health and in Nadezhda Vasilievna’s office I saw Sechenov. “Alive, alive,” he told me. “Didn’t God punish you?” - “No, Ivan Mikhailovich, I’m alive and I’m terribly glad that I danced with you.” "Very well". Then, after talking about something with Stasova, he suddenly turned to me: “Why aren’t you in ballet? You dance beautifully!” I was embarrassed and didn’t know what to answer. “What are you talking about, Ivan Mikhailovich, she will be a scientist,” said Nadezhda Vasilievna. “We leave her to study zoology for a year.” Sechenov shook my hand firmly. “And she did well with me,” he said. - I wish you success". Then, laughing, he added: “And ballet is a wonderful thing.” And he was right: with his penetrating gaze he saw for sure that nothing would come of my science.
Ivan Mikhailovich had a very large memory by their faces: he often recognized his listeners several years later, meeting them by chance somewhere in the house or on the street. I remember that two years after completing the course, I was traveling from St. Petersburg in the summer for a lesson in the Tver province and at the Staritsa station I ran into Ivan Mikhailovich, who was traveling from his wife’s estate (in the Tver province) somewhere near Torzhok to visit his older sister. In one hand he had a small suitcase, in the other a bunch of yellow French novels. He recognized me: “Oh, hello, dancer.” Having asked me where and why I was going, regretting that I was going to work and not to relax, he said: “But I’m going to my sister for two weeks for complete rest, my sister is old, I’ll play fools with her, but these Reading novels is a wonderful thing! Every person needs such rest; they need to make the brain go stupid for a short time. Well, what about science? - he asked me. - “Nothing, Ivan Mikhailovich, I’m studying.” - “Well, the Lord is with you, but don’t give up dancing, it’s good for the soul.” We said goodbye and went our separate ways.
Artemyev N.A. (a private assistant professor at the university who taught geometry and trigonometry), was a small composer (he composed romances and children's songs) and a good singer. At our student evenings, he always organized a choir, in which Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov, who was very fond of music and singing, often took part, which he mentions in his autobiographical notes. I remember once in such a choir, Artemyev, who played the role of regent, made a remark to Sechenov: “Listen, dear Ivan Mikhailovich! After all, you can’t hit the tone, listen carefully.” “Eh, my friend,” Sechenov answered. “What other tone do you need, and that’s very good.”<...>.
In the spring of 1884, the Bestuzhev courses moved from Sergievskaya street to your own house on the 10th line of Vasilyevsky Island. At the same time, I completed my training courses. Throughout the last year, in my fourth year, I had to work very hard to publish lectures on invertebrate zoology for the first year. It was like this: I really loved zoology (invertebrates) and studied it a lot in my third and fourth years. I helped Vvedensky (Nikolai Evgenievich) conduct practical classes in the second year, for which I had to snatch time from lectures and from my own studies, but this work gave me very great joy then.
NOT. Vvedensky advised me to take up the publishing of lectures in the first year, in which N.P. taught zoology. Wagner. It so happened that at the very beginning of the year Wagner left for
illnesses abroad, and his department was occupied by the only Kazan zoologist at that time, M.M. Usov54. It was very difficult to take notes for Wagner, and even more difficult for Usov, but I managed somehow, and what I wrote down was read and corrected by Vvedensky.
I not only wrote down and composed the lecture, but also rewrote it in hectograph ink, which took a lot of time: I had to work at night. About two months later, Usov moved to Moscow, and a young scientist (also from Kazan University) appeared at the department - K.S. Merezhkovsky55, brother of the famous poet and writer D. Merezhkovsky. Konstantin S[ergeevich] was a very talented lecturer, but he left the field of a scientist early, and his further life and activity was somehow strange and dark (I don’t really know what it was about)56. I remember how one day I was called into Stasova’s professor’s room. I found Merezhkovsky with her. He couldn’t figure out with the first-year students what Usov was reading to them, and he was very happy when I was able to help him with this. After several doubts and hesitations, he decided not to continue Usov’s course (Coelenterata), but to start a new one - to read the course of “articular legs” as more understandable for female students57.
He instructed me to continue publishing lectures and agreed to edit them. Merezhkovsky did not limit himself to just editing my notes, he also took up my education, gave me books, and had conversations with me. He taught the same course at the university and invited students to publish lectures together with me. The student who took on this work came to me and offered to take care of the entire technical side of the matter (the lectures were already printed in lithography), which I was very happy about. The text was accompanied by plates of schematic drawings, which I made in paint. The course of lectures turned out to be so good that it existed for several more years as a recommended textbook for students (at that time there were no good Russian zoology textbooks until Kholodkovsky’s book appeared). I also drew wall tables for Merezhkovsky’s course, which were practiced long after I graduated from the course.
In the fall I passed my final exams and the courses were completed. I was 21 years old, and I felt that, despite four years of study, I knew very, very little and that now I only understood how to study and what I would like to learn. I began to dream that it would be nice to enter the drawing school, where I was terribly drawn, and devote myself to art, throwing away all the sciences, but... It was impossible to even think about it: life stood before me and the need to work not only for myself. Happy is he who finds his own path from early youth.
54 Mikhail Mikhailovich Usov (1845-1902), zoologist-embryologist, was a graduate of St. Petersburg University (1869), where he studied with F.V. Ovsyannikov as tunicates, and only then went to Kazan, where he became a professor of zoology. He defended his dissertations for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Göttingen (1874), his master's thesis at ISPbU (1877) and his doctorate in Kazan (1885).
55 K.S. Merezhkovsky graduated from ISPbU in 1880 and worked under the supervision of N.P. Wagner until 1886, when he retired and settled in Crimea. He returned to service in 1902 at Kazan University, where he became an associate professor and then a professor of botany. For his short biography, see: Fokin S.I. Russian scientists... P. 190-195.
56 The dark side of Merezhkovsky’s life, which Yulia Ivanovna casually mentions, was his sexual addiction to minors. In Kazan, already a professor, he was put on trial because of this (1914) and was forced to go abroad. This side of his life is covered in detail in the book by M.N. Zolotonosov “Otschere^ Silver Age" M.: Ladomir, 2003.
57 Later, the material from this course by Merezhkovsky was included as a separate chapter in the book by N.P. Wagner “History of the development of the animal kingdom. Course of invertebrate zoology." St. Petersburg, 1885.
They kept me at the zoology department for courses. NOT. Vvedensky worked hard to make me the keeper of the zoological office and an assistant to the laboratory assistant, which would give me some income and pleasant, serious work. but even here I failed. Vvedensky gave me the keys to the office and instructions to put it in order, which I did in good faith. But another candidate appeared, a certain Russian, who was a specialist in physics and had never seriously studied zoology. It would seem that all the chances of getting an office were on my side, but for some reason it was not me who was approved at the council, but Rossiyskaya58. I was very upset, not understanding how this could happen, and I still don’t understand. Vvedensky was embarrassed, N.V. Stasova was indignant, blaming everything on Wagner and calling Russia an intriguer: Wagner’s voice. I cried bitterly, I cried out of sympathy, and so did my roommate, Lisa M. After crying, we went for a walk; Returning home, we bought a whole ruble worth of chocolate from Conradi... and consoled ourselves.
I decided that I would not give up zoology, I would take courses and go to work in a city school. At that time, a diploma from the Higher Women's Courses did not give any rights. To obtain a position as a teacher in a girls' gymnasium, one needed a certificate of completion of eight classes of the gymnasium and a diploma of completion of V.Zh.K. did not add anything, on the contrary, it interfered, because for some reason the gymnasium authorities were afraid of teachers with such a diploma, while the gymnasium teachers were all university graduates. Teachers above the fourth grade did not have the right to teach. Bestuzhevkas were very willingly accepted into city schools. All my contemporaries could attest that the Bestuzhevkas, having a higher education, conducted their business excellently, and the city schools were distinguished by their exemplary organization. But I didn’t end up in the city school, but in the M.N. gymnasium. Stoyunina.
N.V. did it. Stasova: she gave me two letters - one from herself, the other from M.N. Bogdanov, for whom I also worked (vertebrate zoology), recommending me as a future useful worker at the gymnasium. I was hired as an intern without any remuneration... From 9 am to 3 am I worked at the gymnasium (it was located at that time on Furshtatskaya, now Voinova Street), at three I went to courses, where I worked in the zoological office until 5 (on Sergievskaya, now Tchaikovsky Street), from 6 to 9 for lessons. I lived on Furshtatskaya. There was still work to be done at home (preparing something for the gymnasium, for a lesson, drawing and copying for income). The working day was more than 12 hours (15-16), there was little time left for food and sleep. On Sunday I rushed to the Hermitage, and occasionally Lisa and I went to the opera or the Alexandrinsky Theater.
The following year I received science lessons in second and fourth grades. Stoyunin sometimes sent me to the lessons of the then famous natural science teacher A.Ya. Gerda59 to the Obolenskaya gymnasium. I owe a lot to Stoyunin and consider him my first and, in essence, only teacher in the pedagogical field. In my old age, I came across the Montessori system, and it answered all my (educational) thoughts and doubts, and confirmed my beliefs; in essence, I was ready to perceive it and dedicated
58 Maria Aleksandrovna Rossiyskaya (Kozhevnikova) (1861-1929), teacher of the Russian language in Orel (1877-1879), graduated from the VZhK in 1883, where she attended lectures in both the natural and special mathematics departments, where she specialized in physics. After graduation she left (1884-1887) as an assistant to prof. Wagner and took up zoological research, including at the Sevastopol Biological Station under the leadership of S.M. Pere-yaslavtseva; published several papers on crustacean embryology.
59 Alexander Yakovlevich Gerd (1841-1888), famous natural science teacher, son of an Englishman, teacher of the Grand Dukes, including the future Tsar Nicholas II; He was mainly engaged in mineralogy; member and chairman of the Society for the Delivery of Funds of the DRC.
all my time and all my activities studying the system, for it is a whole philosophy, and putting it into practice for the last 25 of my life. To my great regret, I managed to work under the leadership of V.Ya. Stoyunin is only three and a half years old. He died in November 1888.
Soon after completing the courses (in the fall of 1884), I began working in the zoological office of the University60. It happened as follows: my brother, who was at that time in Odessa at the Novorossiysk University (worked, by the way, for the famous zoologist A.O. Kovalevsky) sent me eggs of the crustacean Arthemia salina from the Khadzhibey estuary in a jar and instructions on what to do, so that crustaceans hatch from the eggs. I remember quite clearly the unforgettable impression that I received when one day, sitting at my desk in the evening by the lamp, I suddenly saw how in a glass of salt water, in which several testicles lay at the bottom, one of them burst and rose from it. and a young crustacean, the so-called Nauplius, swam, followed by another, a third, and so on several times. It was wonderful! My heart trembled with joy. The next day after the gymnasium, I grabbed a glass and with the greatest precaution brought it to the zoological office of the university, asked the servant I already mentioned above, Samuil, to call me Merezhkovsky, to whom I showed my treasure.
Merezhkovsky was delighted and asked me to bring the rest of the testicles for experiments, and I left him a glass with newborn crustaceans, although I was sorry to part with my pets. But what was my joy when the next day, having brought the testicles to the office, I received an offer from Merezhkovsky to come to the office on Sundays and two more times a week and take a course in invertebrate zoology under his leadership and take part in his experiments with the testicles of Arthenia salina . This act of Merezhkovsky was bold and illegal: not a single woman at that time had ever crossed the threshold of the university, I was the first. Wagner, the director of the office, was then abroad, and Merezhkovsky was complete master in the office; he allowed himself this freedom - to admit a woman to the university without asking the rector’s permission61.
On Sundays and sometimes other days after school, when time allowed, I ran to the university, to the zoological office: I had my own place, my own microscope, microtome, and so on. I studied hard, taking the invertebrates course. Merezhkovsky helped me, gave me books to take home. Our joint experiments with Arthemia salina went on as usual, and Merezhkovsky wrote a paper about them.
At that time, several young zoologists working in the office were preparing their PhD thesis. Among them I remember I.D. Kuznetsov, the future quite famous entomologist, Shalfeev, extremely sweet and talented person, who died early from tuberculosis,
S.A. Poretsky, a later famous teacher and writer for children on natural science, N.M. Knipovich, a future outstanding scientist, A.I. Ulyanov, Lenin's brother. Among them was V.A. Fausek, my future husband.
These were all very modest young people devoted to science. Among them, Alexander Ulyanov made a particularly charming impression: quiet, silent, with a gentle smile, friendly and polite, despite his seriousness, he enjoyed the jokes of his comrades, of which Kuznetsov was especially capable. They said he wrote
60 In fact, we are talking about a zootomy room.
61 Yulia Ivanovna actually worked in the Zootomy office not only in Wagner’s absence, but also after his return from a trip abroad. But this was a time when Nikolai Petrovich was no longer interested in the affairs of the cabinet, entrusting it first to Merezhkovsky, and after the latter left St. Petersburg - to Shimkevich, whom he invited from Moscow.
outstanding candidate's work, which was prepared for publication, but which did not see the light of day tragic death author.
Among those listed was a certain Khvorostansky, a very limited person, who with great difficulty achieved the title of candidate: he wrote some work on the leech, and Merezhkovsky fought with him and Kuznetsov helped a lot. With difficulty he managed to protect her. I remember the celebration arranged for him by his comrades, the initiator of which was Kuznetsov, and in which Ulyanov also took a significant part. At the entrance doors of the office there was a triumphal arch decorated with giant leeches cut out of cardboard and painted and with an inscription reading: “Come, come, O leech conqueror, our great teacher in perseverance and labor!” And a little lower, in smaller letters: “There is neither a pond nor a ditch where there would not be a leech, but after my work you will not find them anywhere, neither in a ditch nor in a pond.” Everyone arranged the arch; Kuznetsov composed the inscriptions. Khvorostansky took everything seriously and was very pleased and proud. In a long black frock coat, with the face of a small official, he shook hands with everyone and said: “Thank you, Mr. Kuznetsov, thank you, Mr. Ulyanov,” etc. He added the word “Mr.” to each person he addressed: “ Mr. Merezhkovsky, this book was written by Mr. Wagner, I took chemistry based on Mr. Mendeleev’s book.” What happened later to this gentleman, the lord of leeches, I don’t know62.
I worked in the zoological office for about six months, until spring (March), and was very happy, but, alas, this happiness soon came to an end. One fine day, when I came into the office, I saw another woman at a table with a microscope. This woman was my evil genius - Russian. I froze with fear, anticipating big troubles for myself. And so it happened. Everything somehow changed in the office: the silence and working atmosphere were disrupted. I sat at my table as quiet as a mouse, afraid to talk to the young people working next to me. Merezhkovsky came up to me, checking my work and giving me instructions, and occasionally one of my comrades with a request to give me this or that thing from my table. The Russian one behaved noisily, talked to everyone, laughed loudly; They joked with her, chatted, she wanted to be served this or that, to look after her.
But little by little her behavior began to cause condemnation, and the first who began to rebuff her were Ulyanov, Fausek, and the shy Poretsky. With her remained the joker Kuznetsov, the stupid Khvorostansky and young Wagner, just a boy, the son of Nikolai Petrovich. She never left him alone. And then Merezhkovsky fell ill and left for Crimea, and in his place the famous zoologist Shimkevich63 appeared in his office. Soon after his appearance, the office received a proposal from the dean of the Faculty of Natural History to remove women from the office64. I had to obey, collect my belongings and leave.
The Russian was indignant and decided not to leave this matter like that, without any objections. One fine day she came to me with an offer to go to the minister
62 Konstantin Ivanovich Khvorostansky (1860-?), a graduate of ISPbU in 1887, worked in the office for several more years as if he had been left behind to prepare for a professorship; traveled to the Solovetsky biological station twice (1887 and 1890) and was the keeper of the office. In science, however, he really did not become famous for anything since in 1894 he went to work in a bank.
63 Then V.M. Shimkevich had just received his master's degree and was not yet a famous scientist.
64 Officially, the department was called the Department of Zoology, Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Natural Sciences Department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of ISPbU; It then consisted of three rooms: Zootomy, Zoology and Physiology. The latter was divided into the actual Physiological and Anatomical-Histological in 1888 at the suggestion of F.V. Ovsyannikov; in fact, these were already 4 independent departments.
public education, known at that time for its stupidity, Delyanov. She read me a report, extremely ornately written, about injustice towards “scientific” women. Although I did not consider myself to have such an honorable title (a learned woman), I did. agreed to go with her to Delyanov<...>But nothing worked out not only for me, but also for Rossiya - we were no longer allowed into the office.
I didn’t quit zoology classes and that’s it free time taught at the Higher Courses in the zoological laboratory. At this time, N.A. taught zoology at the courses. Kholodkovsky, who drew attention to my ability to draw microscopic preparations, and I became his regular draftsman. Many of his works are illustrated by me; There were also my drawings in his excellent textbook on invertebrate zoology, translated into French. Later, when I was already married, Kholodkovsky was a professor of zoology at the Forestry Institute, and I went to his zoological office to draw preparations for his works. One day I told him (the conversation turned to smoking) that I would never smoke, but that I really love sweets and always work better and faster if I have something sweet in my mouth. The next day I found a large box of wonderful chocolates on my table. I was deeply touched by such attention, and Kholodkovsky won: I finished the drawings earlier than he expected.
Occasionally, my husband and I visited the Kholodkovskys. In a private conversation N.A. was a very interesting and versatile interlocutor. He was a doctor by training, a zoologist by profession, and, in addition, he was a great connoisseur of literature and an excellent translator (he translated “Faust”).
Shortly before our expulsion from the zoological office of the university, the so-called second March 1st (1887) happened - an attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander III. Going to the zoological office the next day (March 2), I found it empty; Apart from the servant Samuel, there was not a single person working there. Samuel told me that Ulyanov was arrested that night, his desk was searched, and all his papers were taken away (that is, his work was almost finished)65. Samuel was very upset. “They took such a quiet, good fellow, and they will hang him,” he said. And so it happened. We were all shocked.
This tragic event partially affected my future husband, V.A. Fauseka. He had a friend, a zoologist, teacher at the Forestry Institute, Ivan Yakovlevich Shevyrev. Ivan Yakovlevich had younger brother, Peter, a revolutionary involved in a terrorist attack on March 1, 1887. This Peter, a twenty-year-old youth, was sick with tuberculosis and lived in Yalta. He was seriously, hopelessly ill, but he was still arrested. Iv[an] Yak[ovlevich] and F[ausek] made every possible effort and worked to ensure that he was given bail to his parents, since his days were, according to the doctors, numbered, but. he was executed, just like Ulyanov. This sad event darkened my last time in the zoological office. K.S. Merezhkovsky was firmly convinced that I would devote myself to science and be a scientist, he talked to me about this, helped me work, gave me books. Before him, N.E. supported me in this conviction. Vvedensky. In the summer of 1886, I wrote a short work “Ciliates of Kerch
65 Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov (1866-1887) managed to receive a gold medal in his 3rd year at the university for his essay “Study of the structure of segmental organs of freshwater AppiMa” (1886). Here we are apparently talking about work for the title of candidate, which was defended at the end of a university course. According to the memoirs of A.I. Ulyanova, at the beginning of 1887, Alexander studied the organs of vision in some type of worm. See: Polyansky Yu.I. Work by Alexander Ulyanov on the structure of segmental organs of freshwater annelids // From the history of biological sciences. Vol. 10 (Tr. IIET, vol. 41). M.; L., 1961. P. 3-15. Prize-winning essay by A.I. Ulyanov published in the same place, p. 16-28.
Bay"66, and Merezhkovsky forced me to make a report to the Society of Natural Scientists at the university. I even became a member of this society and was proud of its diploma. But. Disappointment soon set in, and not even disappointment, but a completely conscious conviction that I was not fit for science, that I could not devote myself to it as a true scientist should; This conviction grew and strengthened in me when I compared myself with my brother, a real great scientist who selflessly devoted himself to science. I realized that in my studies of zoology, my eyes and hands were mainly occupied, and my thoughts were in the background; I approached science not as science, but as art, and applied art: I liked to examine, draw, and make preparations. In this last one I achieved great skill. Working in my office, I made a number of preparations for ciliates, such as no one had made before, and they served for two to three years a guide for lectures by professors.
And I moved away from science without regret, especially since its applied side remained with me for a long time in my life.
Recollections of Yulia I. Faussek (Andrussova)
The Publication with Commentary by Sergei I. Fokin;
An introductory Essay by Sergei I. Fokin and Oxana V. Vahromeeva
St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia; [email protected]; [email protected]
These are a selection of the vast reminiscences left by Y. I. Faussek's, a graduate of the Department of Natural Sciences of St. Petersburg Higher Women's Courses (1884). They primarily reveal the informal character of certain St. Petersburg University professors-biologists, and other events that occurred in the 1880s. The authors provide an extensive biographical note on Faussek, who is known for introducing the Montessori system of child education in Russia. Previously unknown photos of Faussek accompany the publication.
Keywords: Y.I. Faussek (Andrussova), Higher women (Bestuzhevskiye) courses, St. Petersburg University, zoology, botany, physiology, professor-biologists.
66 This work - “Ciliates of Kerch Bay” was published - in the Proceedings of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists (vol. 16, pp. 236-258) and can be considered one of the first protozoological studies done in Russia by women.
Yulia Ivanovna’s social circle at that time was at the very edge of advanced scientific thought in St. Petersburg. Her husband, Victor Fausek, was a prominent zoologist; her brother, Nikolai Andrusov, is a geologist and paleontologist. At the higher women's courses, where she studied natural sciences, her teachers were Mendeleev and Bekhterev. Finally, from zoology, which was her original specialty, she was turned to pedagogy by Peter Lesgaft, one of the first Russian scientists who tried to approach issues of education scientifically. Therefore, it is not surprising that Julia Fausek became keenly interested in the ideas of Maria Montessori. In 1912, at one of the St. Petersburg pedagogical societies, she heard a report by Ekaterina Yanzhul on the Montessori method. Then, in 1913, she came across the book “The Children’s Home,” which, as she writes in her memoirs, “ caused a lot of talk and the most lively debate among teachers"(2). From this moment on, Fausek begins to frantically search for everything that is somehow connected with Montessori pedagogy.
Julia Fausek became keenly interested in the ideas of Maria Montessori.
She's lucky. While vacationing with her children in the summer of 1913 in the resort town of Toila in Estonia, Julia Fausek learned that her neighbor was the physicist V.V. Lermontov, who was as ardent an enthusiast of the Montessori method as she was. Perhaps even more, since Lermontov ordered Montessori didactic material from London. In conversations with Lermontov and a joint study of didactic material, Yulia Ivanovna finally came up with the idea of quitting school teaching and focusing solely on raising children under 6–7 years of age. And already in October 1913 in St. Petersburg, at number 7 on Shpalernaya Street, she managed to open the first Montessori kindergarten in Russia. This garden owes its discovery to the Commercial School (3), in whose building it was located; the director of the school, S.I. Sozonov, and the owner, M.A. Shidlovskaya, were also fascinated by the ideas of Montessori and provided assistance to Fausek.
The garden was small: it was located in one room, designed for no more than 10-12 children, and the lesson lasted only two hours a day (from 10 am to noon). Didactic material had to be made manually according to samples of Lermontov’s material, for which the latter regularly organized exhibitions in educational institutions of the country in order to popularize the Montessori method. Nevertheless, even such a garden opened up gigantic spaces for activity for Julia Fausek. She works hard and tries to adapt Montessori materials and methods to Russian realities and the Russian language. Finally, under the patronage of Sozonov, the Russian Ministry of Public Education in the spring of 1914 sent her for a month-long internship in Italy, with Maria Montessori. In Rome, Yulia Ivanovna visited six “Children’s Homes” and became familiar with the work of their teachers in detail. The result of this trip was her book “A Month in the Children’s Homes of Maria Montessori,” to which we will return.
Upon her return from Italy, despite the outbreak of war, Fausek was able to expand her kindergarten, which now consisted of two spacious rooms, 30 children from 3 to 6-7 years old, a teacher and Yulia Ivanovna herself. The kindergarten was private and paid, therefore, mainly children of the intelligentsia studied there. The expanded garden was renamed the Montessori Children's Home. This change in name is symptomatic: the name that has become established in Russia today preschool institutions"kindergarten" is actually a historical reference to the German pedagogical system Froebel, which of the paedocentric concepts was most widespread in tsarist Russia. Already in Soviet Russia, where the preschool system became universal, any connection to Froebel in kindergartens practically disappeared, but the name remained. Calling her brainchild the “Children’s House,” Yulia Ivanovna sought to emphasize her Montessori continuity.
Since 1915, Fausek’s “Children’s Home” attracted a lot of attention from both teachers and people simply interested in new ideas.
Since 1915, Fausek’s “Children’s Home” attracted a lot of attention from both teachers and people simply interested in new ideas. For example, the artist Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin often visited there, whose godchildren visited the house. Gradually, there was no end to visitors who wanted to see with their own eyes the work of the Montessori system. This interfered with working with children, and therefore Yulia Ivanovna, with the support of Sozonov and a government subsidy, opened the “Society of Free Education (Montessori Method)” in April 1916, which organized training courses. In addition to Fausek herself, they were taught by people close to her from the pedagogical and scientific community Petersburg. In total, 7 subjects were taught there: theory and practice of the Montessori system, methods of primary education, psychology, biology and education, childhood hygiene, drawing, rhythm. By 1917, the Society consisted of 97 full members and, in addition to conducting courses, it was involved in organizing free reports, whose goal was to popularize the Montessori method. And this popularity grew, and there were even conversations among the spouses of St. Petersburg textile manufacturers to open a second “Children’s Home” in the city with their money. But then it happened February Revolution, and the factory owners had no time for pedagogy. The society of free education and the courses organized under it existed for almost two years and disappeared only in the summer of 1917, when, in the fire of the revolution, new forms of public school and preschool education were born.
- Fausek Yu. I. Russian teacher (Book 1): Memoirs of a Montessori teacher. M., 2010. P. 157.
- Decree. op. P. 159.
- It is curious that at that time the sons of Nikolai Lossky, Alexander Kerensky, Lev Kamenev, Leon Trotsky, Boris Kustodiev were studying at the Maria Shidlovskaya Commercial School.
) - Russian teacher in the field of preschool education and primary education, sister of geologist and paleontologist Academician N. I. Andrusov, wife of biologist Professor of Moscow University V. A. Fausek.
Biography
Born into the family of a navigator Russian Society shipping and trade; I lost my father early. She studied at the Kerch women's gymnasium; in 1884 she graduated from the Higher Women’s (Bestuzhev) Courses. She taught biology in secondary women's educational institutions in St. Petersburg, continuing to study science.
Later, moving away from biological science, she began to study the problems of preschool pedagogy. Visited Italy to study pedagogical method Maria Montessori and became the most prominent promoter of this method in Russia. In May 1918, she opened the first kindergarten in Petrograd, working according to the Montessori system. It was attended by 200 children aged from one to nine years.
In the 1920s she taught at the Institute of Preschool Education and. In 1930, new methods in pedagogy were prohibited for ideological reasons; Nevertheless, Yu. I. Fausek continued to develop Montessori ideas.
She died in besieged Leningrad. She left memories stored in the Russian National Library (partially published).
Family
Memory
In the city of Kerch, on Aivazovsky Street, the house in which the Andrusovs spent their childhood has been preserved in a dilapidated state.
Selected works
- Andrusova Yu. I. Ciliates of Kerch Bay: From the works of Zool. Sib laboratory un-ta. - St. Petersburg. : type. V. Demakova, 1886. - 24 p. - (Ot. from // St. Petersburg. Society of Naturalists / Tr. - 1886. - T. 17, Issue 1.).
- Geometry in elementary school Montessori / Transl. from Italian: J. Fausek. - [Pg.]: The beginnings of knowledge, 1922. - 24 p.
- Taubman V.V., Fausek Yu.I. Theory and practice of Montessori kindergarten. - Pg.; M.: Mysl, 1923. - 133 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. Paper kingdom: Cutting out of colored paper as a tool for teaching “subject lessons”: Vol. 1. - St. Petersburg. : Y. Bashmakov and K˚, 1912. - 31 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. Montessori grammar for young children. - M.; L.: State. publishing house, 1928. - 76 p. - (B-teacher). - 4000 copies.
- Fausek Yu. I. Montessori kindergarten: Experiences and observations during seven years of work in kindergartens according to the Montessori system. - Berlin; Pb.; M.: Z. I. Grzhebin, 1923. - 215 p. || Montessori kindergarten: Experiences and observations during twelve years of work in kindergartens according to the Montessori system. - 2nd ed., rev. - M.; L.: Gosizdat, 1926. - 224 p. - (B-teacher).
- Fausek Yu. I. The importance of drawing in a Montessori school: Experiments and observations. - Petersburg: Time, 1923. - 62 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. How Baba Yaga lives. - St. Petersburg. : O. N. Popova’s company, 1913. - 16 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. How Natasha and Kolya lived: [Stories for children]. - M.: Posrednik, 1928. - T. 1–6. - 67 s. - (Book 1. On the street; Book 2. At home; Book 3. Visiting grandmother; Book 4. In the garden in autumn; Book 5. In the garden in winter; Book 6. Comrades).
- Fausek Yu. I. Montessori method in Russia. - Pg. : Time, 1924. - 82 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. A month in Rome in the “Children's Home” of Maria Montessori. - Pg. : type. M. Volkova, 1915. - 189 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. On attention in young children (according to Montessori): Report, read. in psychology laboratories Pedagogical museum. - Pg. : The Beginnings of Knowledge, 1922. - 16 p. - (Pedagogical library, No. 9).
- Fausek Yu. I. Teaching literacy and speech development according to the Montessori system. - M.: State. publishing house, 1922. - 107 p.|| . - L., 1924. - 113 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. Teaching numeracy using the Montessori system. - L.: State. publishing house, 1924. - 120 p. - (Textbooks and teaching aids for labor schools).
- Fausek Yu. I. Kidnapped Princess: Dramatic. fairy tale in 4 days for children. theater - St. Petersburg. : type. acc. Brockhaus-Efron Islands, 1909. - 36 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. Development of intelligence in young children (according to Montessori). - Pg. : The Beginnings of Knowledge, 1922. - 23 p. - (Pedagogical library, No. 10).
- Fausek Yu. I. Independent studies for students in grades 1–4. - L., 1940. - 48 p. - 1500 copies.
- Fausek Yu. I. Montessori school material: Literacy and numeracy. - M.; L.: State. publishing house, 1929. - 118 p. - (B-teacher). - 4000 copies.
- Fausek Yu. I., Sidorova M. A. How we do it. - Petersburg: Lights, 1922. - 20 p.
- Montessori school didactic material processed by Yu. I. Fausek. - M.: State. publishing house, 1930. - 210 p. - 5000 copies.
Yulia Ivanovna Fausek(Andrusova; June 3, 1863, Kerch - 1942, Leningrad) - Russian teacher in the field of preschool education and primary education, sister of geologist and paleontologist Academician N.I. Andrusov, wife of biologist Professor of Moscow University V.A. Fausek.
Biography
Born into the family of a navigator of the Russian Shipping and Trade Society; I lost my father early. She studied at the Kerch women's gymnasium; in 1884 she graduated from the Higher Women's (Bestuzhev) Courses. She taught biology in secondary women's educational institutions in St. Petersburg, continuing to study science.
Later, moving away from biological science, she began to study the problems of preschool pedagogy. She visited Italy to study the pedagogical method of Maria Montessori and became the most prominent promoter of this method in Russia. In May 1918, she opened the first kindergarten in Petrograd, working according to the Montessori system. It was attended by 200 children aged from one to nine years.
In the 1920s, she taught at the Institute of Preschool Education and the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute named after A.I. Herzen. In 1930, new methods in pedagogy were prohibited for ideological reasons; Nevertheless, Yu. I. Fausek continued to develop Montessori ideas.
She died in besieged Leningrad. She left memories stored in the Russian National Library (partially published).
Family
Husband - Viktor Andreevich Fausek (1861-1910) - professor, director of the Higher Women's (Bestuzhev) Courses.
- Son - Vsevolod Viktorovich Fausek (1889, St. Petersburg - 01/15/1910, St. Petersburg);
- Son - Vladimir Viktorovich Fausek (1892, St. Petersburg - 07/1/1915, St. Petersburg);
- Daughter - Natalia Viktorovna Fausek (1893 or 1895, St. Petersburg - 1953) - actress, Honored Artist of the RSFSR;
- Son - Nikolai Viktorovich Fausek (1894, Naples - 1938, Moscow).
Memory
In the city of Kerch, on Aivazovsky Street, the house in which the Andrusovs spent their childhood has been preserved in a dilapidated state.
Selected works
- Andrusova Yu. I. Ciliates of Kerch Bay: From the works of Zool. Sib laboratory un-ta. - SPb.: type. V. Demakova, 1886. - 24 p. - (Ot. from // St. Petersburg. Society of Naturalists / Tr. - 1886. - T. 17, Issue 1.).
- Geometry in the Montessori elementary school / Trans. from Italian: J. Fausek. - [Pg.]: The beginnings of knowledge, 1922. - 24 p.
- Taubman V.V., Fausek Yu.I. Theory and practice of Montessori kindergarten. - Pg.; M.: Mysl, 1923. - 133 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. Paper kingdom: Ripping out of colored paper as a tool for teaching “subject lessons”: Vol. 1. - St. Petersburg: Y. Bashmakov and K, 1912. - 31 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. Grammar for young children according to Montessori. - M.; L.: State. publishing house, 1928. - 76 p. - (B-teacher). - 4000 copies.
- Fausek Yu. I. Montessori kindergarten: Experiments and observations during seven years of work in kindergartens according to the Montessori system. - Berlin; Pb.; M.: Z. I. Grzhebin, 1923. - 215 p. || Montessori kindergarten: Experiences and observations during twelve years of work in kindergartens according to the Montessori system. - 2nd ed., rev. - M.; L.: Gosizdat, 1926. - 224 p. - (B-teacher).
- Fausek Yu. I. The importance of drawing in a Montessori school: Experiments and observations. - Petersburg: Time, 1923. - 62 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. How Baba Yaga lives. - St. Petersburg: O. N. Popova’s company, 1913. - 16 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. How Natasha and Kolya lived: [Stories for children]. - M.: Posrednik, 1928. - T. 1–6. - 67 s. - (Book 1. On the street; Book 2. At home; Book 3. Visiting grandmother; Book 4. In the garden in autumn; Book 5. In the garden in winter; Book 6. Comrades).
- Fausek Yu. I. Montessori method in Russia. - Pg.: Time, 1924. - 82 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. Msyats to Rome in the “Children's Home” of Maria Montessori. - Pg.: typ. M. Volkova, 1915. - 189 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. About attention in young children (according to Montessori): Report, read. in psychology laboratories Pedagogical museum. - Pg.: The beginnings of knowledge, 1922. - 16 p. - (Pedagogical library, No. 9).
- Fausek Yu. I. Teaching literacy and speech development according to the Montessori system. - M.: State. publishing house, 1922. - 107 p. || . - L., 1924. - 113 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. Teaching numeracy using the Montessori system. - L.: State. publishing house, 1924. - 120 p. - (Textbooks and teaching aids for labor schools).
- Fausek Yu. I. The Kidnapped Princess: Dramatic. fairy tale in 4 days for children's school. theater - SPb.: type. acc. Brockhaus-Efron Islands, 1909. - 36 p.
- Fausek Yu. I. Development of intelligence in young children (according to Montessori). - Pg.: The beginnings of knowledge, 1922. - 23 p. - (Pedagogical library, No. 10).
- Fausek Yu. I. Independent studies of schoolchildren in grades 1–4. - L., 1940. - 48 p. - 1500 copies.
- Fausek Yu. I. Montessori school material: Literacy and numeracy. - M.; L.: State. publishing house, 1929. - 118 p. - (B-teacher). - 4000 copies.
- Fausek Yu. I., Sidorova M. A. How we do things. - Petersburg: Lights, 1922. - 20 p.
- Montessori school didactic material processed by Yu. I. Fausek. - M.: State. publishing house, 1930. - 210 p. - 5000 copies.
The entire life of the outstanding devotee of pedagogy and preschool education Yulia Ivanovna Fausek (1863-1942) is an example of faithful service to the ideals of science and public education. For a long time, her name was not mentioned in official publications, but during the period of perestroika, interest arose in the pioneer of the kindergarten system Montessori teachers in Russia.
On June 3, 1863, a girl was born into the family of a retired naval officer, a participant in the heroic defense of Sevastopol, Ivan Andrusov, she was named Yulia. The family lived in Kerch, the father served as a navigator on a merchant ship, he died at sea when Yulia was not even seven years old.
The girl did not have a good relationship with her mother, but her older brother, Nikolai Andrusov, tried to make up for the loss of his father and became a true friend for her. He will always be the main example in her life - a scientist, geologist, mineralogist, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
At the age of nine, Yulia was sent to a boarding school; she did not like it here. Not wanting to learn everything that the “madame” forced her to do at the boarding school, the freedom-loving girl ran away to Mount Mithridates and enthusiastically watched birds and butterflies, lizards and snakes.
When she was transferred to a women's gymnasium, Yulia was very successful in drawing and fell in love with Russian literature classes. Freed from the oppressive influence of an authoritarian upbringing, she breathed a sigh of relief - this is what good teachers and the absence of constant pressure mean. She remembered for the rest of her life what a joy it was - study freely without being pushed around!
The family constantly lacked money, and Yulia began to work - already in the fifth grade she began giving private lessons to children from wealthy families. After graduating from high school, having saved up some money, fifty rubles, in the summer of 1880, for the first time in her life, she boarded a train and set off alone across half the country to the northern capital.
In those days, young enthusiasts chose a profession not by personal preference, and, of course, not by random whim - enlightened youth sought to remain faithful to the ideals of the Great Reforms - serving the interests of the people.
The pronounced social orientation of her beliefs prompted Yulia Andrusova to abandon the study of painting, to which she was so attracted, and to enroll as a medical student, but women’s medical courses were accepted from the age of twenty, and she had only just turned seventeen. Brother Nikolai called her in letters to return to Crimea, but the girl did not want to return with nothing. In addition, she completed only 7 grades, and in order to enter the Higher Women's Courses, she had to pass additional exams for the 8th grade: Russian and mathematics.
Director of the Kronstadt Women's Gymnasium Nikolai Alekseevich Kobeko (so in the “Memoirs” of Yu.I. Fausek, but in fact N.A. Kozeko. - E.K.) found in her high school certificate, where it was “excellent” in all subjects, “good” in behavior.
To enter a higher school with such a mark was considered unthinkable in those days. Then the director rewrote the certificate of passing the tests, giving “five” for behavior. Having torn up the Kerch certificate and thrown it into the trash, he said to the amazed girl: “Just give your word that you will not tell anyone about my forgery until my death.”
What made a graduate of the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, who devoted his entire life to the cause of public education, to do this? Perhaps he foresaw the future fate of his colleague - the future teacher.
ON THE. Kozeko since 1884 worked as the men's director and chairman pedagogical council Aleksandrovskaya women's gymnasium in Kronstadt, these schools under his leadership became one of the best in the St. Petersburg educational district. Having learned about his death, Julia told her friends about the generosity of a kind man with a funny last name, who opened the path to higher education for her.
So, Yulia managed to enroll in the natural sciences department of the most democratic Higher Women's Courses in the capital. Let us note that in the second half of the 19th century, as at the beginning of the 20th, women were not allowed into imperial universities. The best representatives of Russian science, outstanding professors of St. Petersburg, associates of the founder of the Bestuzhev Higher Women's Courses Andrei Nikolaevich Beketov considered it their duty to teach here in order to help their compatriots overcome the humiliating prohibitions on education.
The young Crimean woman plunged headlong into the turbulent life of the city on the Neva, where everything was amazing: professors, fellow students, books, avenues, theaters. She studied with outstanding scientists: N.P. Wagner, I.M. Sechenova, N.E. Vvedensky and S.M. Herzenstein. To earn a living, like most female students of that time, the girl gave private lessons - this special skill of personal lessons with children will become a solid basis for her future teaching activities.
At the end of the course, Yulia turned 21 and wanted to study science. K.S. Merezhkovsky, the brother of the famous writer, invited her to work in the zoological office at the university and participate in the experiment. Julia appreciated the scientist’s audacity, because at that time women were not even allowed to cross the threshold of the university. This activity was not paid, and Andrusova went to work at a city school. In the state education system, a diploma of completion of the Higher Women's Courses did not give any rights to placement; on the contrary, it hindered them, because the gymnasium authorities looked at the graduates of the new “women's university” without any trust. However, Bestuzhevkas were willingly accepted into the newly created private and public educational institutions, and Yulia ended up in the Maria Nikolaevna Stoyunina women's gymnasium, one of the best in St. Petersburg.
On Sundays and sometimes other days after school, Andrusova rushed to the zoological office, where she had her own place, her own microscope and instruments. The girl worked hard, they helped her with her studies, and gave her books to take home. At the same time, in this office, a young zoologist Viktor Andreevich Fausek I was preparing my PhD thesis. Spiritual kinship, shared obsession research activities connected them. Their social circle included people creative professions: poet A.N. Pleshcheev, writers V.M. Garshin, D.S. Merezhkovsky and others. However, soon the dean of the Faculty of Natural History, having learned about the violations, ordered the woman to be removed from the office; she had to obey. Julia recalled that she was disappointed, and the conviction came that she was not suitable for science.
In 1887, Yulia married Victor, the next year they had a son, Vsevolod, and then three more children - Natalya, Vladimir and Nikolai. Having defended his master's thesis, V.A. Fausek became a private lecturer and lectured at the university. For two years he conducted research at the Zoological Station in Naples, where he brought his family. In 1898, Viktor Andreevich defended his doctoral dissertation and received a chair at the Women's Medical Institute in St. Petersburg. Professor-zoologist and entomologist, V.A. Fausek was deservedly considered an enthusiast for the democratization of education - in 1906 he became the elected director of the Bestuzhev courses and headed them for five far from calm years.
In January 1910, disaster struck - their eldest son Vsevolod and his beloved committed suicide due to the inability to start a family. Viktor Andreevich did not survive the tragedy and died six months later; he was buried next to his son at the Volkov cemetery. Their second son, Vladimir, a graduate of St. Petersburg University, followed in the footsteps of his parents, worked on research on Lake Seliger, but suddenly fell ill and died on July 1, 1914 on the way to the capital. Julia suffered a severe attack of mental illness, but managed to overcome it.
After the terrible events, Yulia Ivanovna urgently needed work. Back in 1912, she read an article by E.N. in the Bulletin of Education. Yanzhul “About an Italian kindergarten”, and she wanted to learn as much as possible about the unique pedagogical system. Soon she became acquainted with the translation of a wonderful book Maria Montessori“Case die Bambini” (“Children’s Home”), and she was truly captivated by what she read.
- Why was the Motessori system banned in the USSR?
Literature
- 1. Vernadskaya E.K. First elected director of the All-Russian Housing Complex Viktor Andreevich Fausek // St. Petersburg Higher Women's (Bestuzhev) Courses. 2nd ed., add. and corr. L., 1973.
- 2. Knyazev E.A. Russia: from reforms to revolution (1861-1917). M., 2007.
- 3. Knyazev E.A. Russian education (IX-XX centuries). Saarbrucken: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2012.
- 4. Fausek Yu. I. Russian teacher. Memoirs of a Montessori teacher. Book 1. M.: Forum, 2010.
Knyazev E.A. Julia Fausek and free preschool education
// Preschool education. 2015. No. 3. P. 114-119.