Negative results of Stolypin's agrarian reform. Stolypin's agrarian reform

P. N. Yablochkov (from a photograph of the 1890s)
Coat of arms of the Yablochkovs
Birth:	September 2 (September 14)(1847-09-14 ) Serdobsky Uyezd, Saratov Governorate, Russian Empire
Death:	March 19 (March 31) ( 1894-03-31 ) (46 years old) Saratov, Russian Empire
Burial place:	With. Boot of Rtishchevsky district
Genus:	Yablochkovs
Education:	Nikolaev Engineering School
Activity:	electrical engineer, inventor
Military service
Years of service:	1866-1867, 1869-1872
Type of army:	engineering troops
Rank:	lieutenant
Job title:	battalion adjutant
Commanded:	head of the galvanizing team
Part:	5th Engineer Battalion, 5th Engineer Regiment
Scientific activity
Scientific field:	electrical engineering
Known as:	inventor of the electric candle named after him, as well as other inventions that made a great contribution to the development of electrical engineering in the world
Autograph:
Family
Father:	Nikolai Pavlovich
Mother:	Elizaveta Petrovna (ur. Zemshchininova)
Spouse:	Lyubov Ilyinichna Nikitina (1849-1887) Maria Nikolaevna Albova
Children:	Natalia (1871-1886) Boris (1872-1903) Alexandra (1874-1888) Andrey (1873-1921) Plato
Awards

Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov(2 (14) September 1847, Serdobsky district of the Saratov province - 19 (31) March 1894, Saratov) - Russian electrical engineer, military engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is known for the development of the arc lamp (which went down in history under the name “Yablochkov candle”) and other inventions in the field of electrical engineering.

Biography

Childhood and adolescence

Elizaveta Petrovna Yablochkova (Zemshchininova), 1870s

Nikolai Pavlovich Yablochkov, con. 1870s

Pavel Yablochkov was born on September 2 (14), 1847 in Serdobsky district, in the family of an impoverished small nobleman who came from an old Russian family. The Yablochkov family was cultured and educated. The father of the future inventor, Nikolai Pavlovich, studied in the Naval Cadet Corps in his youth, but due to illness he was dismissed from service and awarded the civilian rank of XIV class (provincial secretary). Pavel's mother, Elizaveta Petrovna (ur. Zemshchininova), managed the household of a large family. She was distinguished by her imperious character and, according to contemporaries, she held the entire family “in her hands.”

Since childhood, Pavel loved to design. He invented a goniometer device for land surveying, which the peasants of Petropavlovka, Bayki, Soglasov and other surrounding villages used during land redistribution; a device for measuring the distance traveled by a cart - a prototype of modern odometers.

In the summer of 1858 (another date is also indicated - the end of 1859), at the insistence of his wife, N.P. Yablochkov took his son to the Saratov 1st Men's Gymnasium, where, after successful exams, Pavel was immediately enrolled in the second grade. However, at the end of November 1862, Nikolai Pavlovich recalled his son from the 5th grade of the gymnasium and took him home to Petropavlovka. Not last role The difficult financial situation of the family played a role in this. It was decided to enroll Pavel in the Nikolaev Military Engineering School (now the Military Engineering and Technical University) in St. Petersburg. But Pavel did not have the necessary knowledge to enter there. Therefore, for several months he studied at a private preparatory boarding school, which was maintained by the military engineer Ts. A. Cui. Caesar Antonovich had a great influence on Yablochkov and aroused the future inventor’s interest in science. Their acquaintance continued until the death of the scientist.

Study and military service

September 30, 1863, having brilliantly passed the difficult entrance examination, Pavel Nikolaevich was enrolled in the Nikolaev School, in the junior conductor class. A strict daily routine and adherence to military discipline brought certain benefits: Pavel became physically stronger and received military training. On August 8, 1866, Yablochkov graduated from college in the first category. By the highest order, he was promoted to second lieutenant and assigned to serve in the 5th engineer battalion, stationed in the Kyiv fortress. His parents dreamed of seeing him as an officer, Pavel Nikolaevich himself military career did not attract, and even burdened. Arriving at the battalion on October 2, 1866, Yablochkov, having served for a little over a year, citing illness, retired from military service on December 9, 1867, receiving the rank of lieutenant.

On January 18, 1869, by the highest order, Yablochkov was again assigned to military service in the 5th engineer battalion as a second lieutenant. He was immediately sent to the Officer Galvanic Classes in Kronstadt, at that time it was the only school in Russia that trained military specialists in the field of electrical engineering. There P.N. Yablochkov met the latest achievements in the field of study and technical application electric current, especially in mining, thoroughly improved his theoretical and practical electrical training. Eight months later, upon completion of galvanic classes, Pavel Nikolaevich was appointed head of the galvanic team of the 5th engineer battalion. Yablochkov arrived at his place of service on September 6, 1869; a few days later, on September 22, he was appointed head of weapons in the battalion and remained in this position until April 1, 1870. On April 15, Pavel Nikolaevich was confirmed as a battalion adjutant, whose duties were limited to some military-economic functions and reporting. On July 24, 1871, Yablochkov was again promoted to lieutenant, and on September 11, 1872, he retired to the reserve, parting with the army forever.

Shortly before leaving Kyiv, Pavel Yablochkov married Lyubov Ilyinichna Nikitina.

Beginning of inventive activity

P. N. Yablochkov during his years of work in Moscow (1872)

Having retired to the reserve, P. N. Yablochkov entered the Department of the Moscow-Kursk Railway as head of the telegraph service (according to other sources, assistant head of the telegraph service). Already at the beginning of his service on the railway, P. N. Yablochkov made his first invention: he created a “black-writing telegraph apparatus.” Unfortunately, the details of this invention have not reached us.

Yablochkov was a member of the circle of electricians-inventors and electrical engineering enthusiasts at the Moscow Polytechnic Museum. Here he learned about A. N. Lodygin’s experiments in lighting streets and rooms with electric lamps, after which he decided to start improving the arc lamps that existed at that time. He began his inventive activity with an attempt to improve the Foucault spring regulator, the most common at that time. The regulator was very complex, operated with the help of three springs and required constant attention.

In the spring of 1874, Pavel Nikolaevich had the opportunity to practically use an electric arc for lighting. A government train was supposed to travel from Moscow to Crimea. For traffic safety purposes, the administration of the Moscow-Kursk road decided to illuminate this train railway track at night and turned to Yablochkov as an engineer interested in electric lighting. He willingly agreed. For the first time in the history of railway transport, a searchlight with an arc lamp - a Foucault regulator - was installed on a steam locomotive. Yablochkov, standing on the front platform of the locomotive, changed the coals and tightened the regulator; and when the locomotive was changed, Pavel Nikolaevich dragged his searchlight and wires from one locomotive to another and strengthened them. This continued all the way, and although the experiment was a success, he once again convinced Yablochkov that this method of electric lighting could not be widely used and the controller needed to be simplified.

After leaving telegraph service in 1874, Yablochkov opened a workshop of physical instruments in Moscow. According to the memoirs of one of his contemporaries:

Together with experienced electrical engineer N. G. Glukhov, Yablochkov worked in the workshop to improve batteries and dynamos, and conducted experiments on lighting large area a huge spotlight. In the workshop, Yablochkov managed to create an electromagnet of an original design. He used a winding made of copper tape, placing it on edge in relation to the core. This was his first invention, and here Pavel Nikolaevich carried out work on improving arc lamps.

Along with experiments to improve electromagnets and arc lamps, Yablochkov and Glukhov great importance gave electrolysis to solutions of table salt. An insignificant fact in itself played a big role in the further inventive fate of P. N. Yablochkov. In 1875, during one of the many electrolysis experiments, parallel coals immersed in an electrolytic bath accidentally touched each other. Immediately an electric arc flashed between them, illuminating the walls of the laboratory with bright light for a short moment. It was at these moments that Pavel Nikolaevich had the idea of ​​​​a more advanced design of an arc lamp (without an interelectrode distance regulator) - the future “Yablochkov candle”.

The beginning of Yablochkov’s scientific and inventive activity did not go unnoticed. At a meeting of the Imperial Society of Lovers of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography, which was attached to Moscow University, which took place on September 29, 1874, Pavel Nikolaevich was unanimously elected to full membership of this Society.

World recognition

"Yablochkov's Candle"

Main article: Yablochkov candle.

In October 1875, having sent his wife and children to the Saratov province, to live with his parents, Yablochkov went abroad with the goal of showing his inventions and achievements of Russian electrical engineering in the United States at the World Exhibition in Philadelphia, and at the same time becoming familiar with the development of electrical engineering in other countries. However, financial affairs in the Moscow workshop were completely upset, so that Pavel Nikolaevich only had enough money to get to Paris. Here he became interested in the workshops of physical instruments of Sorbonne professor Antoine Breguet (1851-1882), whose devices Pavel Nikolaevich was familiar with from his work when he was the head of the telegraph in Moscow. A. Breguet received the Russian engineer very kindly and offered him a place in his company. From the end of 1875, Yablochkov began working in the Breguet workshops and took up those orders to which the company attracted him. However, he was haunted by the idea of ​​​​creating an arc lamp without a regulator.

By the beginning of the spring of 1876, Yablochkov completed the development of the design of an electric candle and on March 23 of the same year received a French patent for it No. 112024. Yablochkov’s candle turned out to be simpler, more convenient and cheaper to operate than Lodygin’s coal lamp; it had neither mechanisms nor springs . The candle consisted of two rods separated by an insulating kaolin gasket. Each of the rods was clamped into a separate terminal of the candlestick. At the upper ends it was lit arc discharge, and the arc flame shone brightly, gradually burning the coals and evaporating the insulating material. Yablochkov had to work a lot on choosing a suitable insulating substance and on methods for obtaining suitable coals. Later, he tried to change the color of electric light by adding various metal salts to the evaporating partition between the coals.

Not a single invention in the field of electrical engineering has received such rapid and widespread distribution as Yablochkov’s candles. This was a true triumph of the Russian engineer.

Other inventions

USSR postage stamp dedicated to P. N. Yablochkov, 1951

Facsimile of the RTO letter about awarding P. N. Yablochkov with the Society’s medal (1879)

Decree on awarding P. N. Yablochkov the Order of the Legion of Honor (1882)

P. N. Yablochkov in the laboratory

During his years in France, Pavel Nikolaevich worked not only on the invention and improvement of the electric candle, but also on solving other practical problems. In the first year and a half alone - from March 1876 to October 1877 - he gave humanity a number of other outstanding inventions and discoveries. P. N. Yablochkov designed the first alternating current generator, which, unlike direct current, ensured uniform burning of carbon rods in the absence of a regulator, was the first to use alternating current for industrial purposes, and created an alternating current transformer (November 30, 1876, date of receipt of the patent, considered to be the birth date of the first transformer), a flat-wound electromagnet and the first use of static capacitors in an alternating current circuit. Discoveries and inventions allowed Yablochkov to be the first in the world to create a system for “crushing” electric light, that is, power large number candles from a single current generator, based on the use of alternating current, transformers and capacitors.

On April 21, 1876, P. N. Yablochkov was elected a full member of the French Physical Society. He became the second Russian citizen elected as a member of this Society. The notice dated April 22 stated:

Your Majesty! I have the honor to inform you that you were elected to membership in the French Physical Society at the meeting of April 21st. You may be sure that you will find in society the cordial comradeship which you have a right to expect, and we, for our part, have no doubt that you will exert all your efforts to promote our common success. I consider it my duty, in particular, to ask you to inform people interested in the progress of physics about our work and to bring them closer to us. I leave with the best feelings Your very loyal colleague, Chief Secretary D'Almeida.

In 1878, Yablochkov returned to Russia to deal with the problem of the spread of electric lighting. Soon after the inventor’s arrival in St. Petersburg, the joint-stock company “Partnership of Electric Lighting and Manufacturing of Electrical Machines and Apparatuses P. N. Yablochkov the Inventor and Co.” was established, which opened its electrical plant on the Obvodny Canal.

On April 14, 1879, P. N. Yablochkov was awarded a personalized medal of the Imperial Russian Technical Society (RTO). The award notice stated:

Imperial Russian Technical Society To full member of the Imperial Russian Technical Society Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov: Taking into account that you, through your labors and persistent long-term research and experiments, were the first to achieve a satisfactory practical solution to the issue of electric lighting, the general meeting of Messrs. members of the Imperial Russian Technical Society at a meeting on April 14 of this year, according to the proposal of the Society’s Council, awarded you a medal with the inscription “Worthy Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov.” It is my pleasant duty to inform you, Dear Sir, about this decree General meeting, The Council of the Society has the honor to forward to you a medal made by order of it. Chairman of the Imperial Russian Technical Society Pyotr Kochubey. Secretary Lvov.

On January 30, 1880, the first constituent meeting of the Electrical Engineering (VI) Department of the RTO was held in St. Petersburg, at which P. N. Yablochkov was elected deputy chairman (“chairman candidate”). On the initiative of P. N. Yablochkov, V. N. Chikolev, D. A. Lachinov and A. N. Lodygin, one of the oldest Russian technical magazines, Electricity, was founded in 1880.

In the same 1880, Yablochkov moved to Paris, where he began preparing to participate in the first International Electrotechnical Exhibition, which opened on August 1, 1881. To organize an exhibition stand dedicated to his inventions, Yablochkov called some of his company’s employees to Paris. Among them was Russian inventor, creator of electric arc welding Nikolai Nikolaevich Benardos, whom Yablochkov met back in 1876. To prepare Yablochkov’s exposition, the electrical engineering experimental laboratory at the journal “Bulletin de la Société internationale des électriciens” (Bulletin of the International Society of Electricians) was used.

On June 21, 1881, P. N. Yablochkov was elected to the Organizing Committee of the First International Congress of Electricians (now the World Electrotechnical Congress), which was held on the initiative and under the chairmanship of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs of France A. Cocherie from September 15 to October 5 of the same year in Paris at the Elysee Palace. For participation in the exhibition and congress, Yablochkov was awarded the French Order of the Legion of Honor.

last years of life

p. Rtishchevsky. The former Eshliman estate, where P. N. Yablochkov lived until 1893 (built in 1870)

Saratov. Former “Central Rooms” of Ochkin, where P. N. Yablochkov lived from 1893 to 1894

The International Electrotechnical Exhibition held in Paris showed that Yablochkov’s candle and his lighting system began to lose their importance. Beginning in 1882, Pavel Nikolaevich completely switched to creating a powerful and economical chemical current source. In a number of schemes for chemical current sources, Yablochkov was the first to propose wooden separators to separate the cathode and anode spaces. Subsequently, such separators found wide application in the designs of lead-acid batteries.

On May 2, 1882, P. N. Yablochkov received French patent No. 148737 for the so-called “cliptic” dynamo, which could be used as an electric motor and as an electricity generator.

Work with chemical current sources turned out to be not only poorly studied, but also life-threatening. While conducting experiments with chlorine, Pavel Nikolaevich burned the mucous membrane of his lungs and since then began to choke, and his legs began to swell. In 1883, due to illness, Yablochkov was forced to interrupt his work; He was able to continue his experiments only in 1884. From that time until 1889, he continued to work on electric motors and chemical current sources.

In 1889, Yablochkov left scientific research because he took an active part in organizing the Russian Pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris. He was chairman of the Committee of Russian Exhibitors in Paris and a member of the jury for class XV (precision mechanics, scientific instruments). Yablochkov did a great job, essentially creating the Russian pavilion.

In the same year, Pavel Nikolaevich’s merits in the field of electrical engineering were noted by the Imperial Society of Lovers of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography. At a meeting held on October 7, 1889, Yablochkov was elected an honorary member of this society.

All of P. N. Yablochkov’s activities in Paris took place in the intervals between trips to Russia. In the early 1890s, the scientist decided to finally return to his homeland. However, by that time Yablochkov was in an extremely difficult financial situation. He bought out all his foreign patents No. 112024, 115703 and 120684, paying one million francs for them and therefore did not have the opportunity to move to Russia. This move was accomplished only in the second half of 1893 thanks to financial assistance uncle of Pavel Nikolaevich - Dmitry Pavlovich Yablochkov (1819-1900).

In St. Petersburg, P. N. Yablochkov again became very ill. Fatigue and the consequences of the explosion of a sodium battery in 1884, where he almost died, took their toll, and after the 1889 exhibition, Yablochkov suffered two strokes. For some time, Yablochkov lived in Serdobsk in a small house on Malaya Peschanaya Street (now Kirova Street). Having waited for his second wife Maria Nikolaevna and son Plato to arrive from Paris, Pavel Nikolaevich went with them to Saratov.

From Saratov, the Yablochkovs moved to Atkarsky district, where, near the village of Koleno, the small estate of Dvoenki, inherited by Pavel Nikolaevich, was located. After staying there for a short time, the Yablochkovs headed to Serdobsky district to settle in their “father’s house” and then go to the Caucasus. However, the parental house in the village of Petropavlovka no longer existed; several years before the scientist arrived here, it burned down. I had to settle with my younger sister Ekaterina (d. 1916) and her husband Mikhail Ashliman, whose estate was located near the village of Ivanovka, Sapozhkovsky volost.

Pavel Nikolaevich intended to engage in scientific research here, but very soon realized that it was impossible to do science in the village. This forced the Yablochkovs to move to Saratov again at the beginning of winter (apparently in November 1893). They settled in Ochkin’s “Central Rooms” (now residential building No. 35 on the corner of M. Gorky and Yablochkov streets), on the second floor. His room quickly turned into a study where the scientist, mostly at night, when no one distracted him, worked on drawings for electric lighting in Saratov. Yablochkov’s health deteriorated every day: his heart became weaker, his breathing became difficult. Heart disease led to dropsy, my legs were swollen and could hardly move.

On March 19 (31), 1894 at 6 o’clock in the morning P. N. Yablochkov died. On March 21, Pavel Nikolaevich’s body was transported for funeral to the village of Sapozhok. On March 23, he was buried on the outskirts of the village, in the fence of the Archangel Michael Church in the family crypt.

Actual record of the death of Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov

Family

Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov was married twice. He met his first wife, Lyubov Ilyinichna Nikitina (1849-1887), in Kyiv. He married when he was very young and against the wishes of his family. This marriage produced four children: Natalya (1871-1886); Boris (1872-1903) - engineer-inventor, was fond of aeronautics, worked on developing new powerful explosives and ammunition, died of tuberculosis; Alexandra (1874-1888) and Andrey (1873-1921) - agronomist-gardener, after graduating from the cadet corps, lived on his estate in the village, which went to the children after the death of Pavel Nikolaevich’s parents, was found murdered on the territory of the orchard, the circumstances of his death are not known installed. After the divorce, Yablochkov’s first wife settled in Moscow.

Yablochkov met his second wife, Maria Nikolaevna Albova, the daughter of the Russian florist-systematist, botanist, geographer and traveler Nikolai Mikhailovich Albov, in Paris. Pavel Nikolaevich visited the Albovs very often. 8 months after they met, Maria Albova married him in a civil marriage, according to French law. In his second marriage, a son was born, Platon (1879-?) - a railway engineer, worked on the Moscow Circular Railway as a bridge worker, during the First World War he was mobilized into military units, served in a large engineering unit, after the war he left for border. After Yablochkova's death, Maria Nikolaevna worked as a dressmaker in Saratov, then moved to St. Petersburg, and later to Paris.

Masonic activity

While living in Paris, Yablochkov was initiated into membership Masonic lodge“Work and True Friends of Truth” No. 137 (fr. Travail et Vrais Amis Fideles) was under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of France (GLF). Yablochkov became the Worshipful Master of this lodge on June 25, 1887. Yablochkov founded the first Russian emigrant lodge “Cosmos” No. 288 in Paris, also under the jurisdiction of the VLF. He was the first Worshipful Master of this lodge. This lodge included many Russians who lived in France. In 1888, such subsequently famous Russian figures as professors M. M. Kovalevsky, E. V. de Roberti and N. A. Kotlyarevsky were initiated there. P. N. Yablochkov wanted to turn the Cosmos lodge into an elite one, uniting in its ranks the best representatives of Russian emigration in the field of science, literature and art. However, after the death of Pavel Nikolaevich, the lodge he created ceased its work for some time. She managed to resume her work only in 1899.

Awards

• Order of the Legion of Honor (4 January 1882, France)
• Nominal medal of the Imperial Russian Technical Society (April 14, 1879)

Memory

Bust of P. N. Yablochkov in Saratov near the College of Radio Electronics

Memorial plaque in honor of the village Yablochkovo (Zhadovka)

They bear the name Yablochkov Monuments, bas-reliefs and memorial plaques

Monument at the grave of P. N. Yablochkov (village Sapozhok, Rtishchevsky district) An object cultural heritage RF № 6410046000	Saratov. Memorial plaque on the facade of house No. 35 on the corner of M. Gorky and Yablochkov streets	Monument to P. N. Yablochkov in Serdobsk

Medallion with the image of P. N. Yablochkov at the station Elektrozavodskaya Moscow metro	Bas-relief with a portrait of P. N. Yablochkov in the column hall of the station Technological Institute of the St. Petersburg Metro

Yablochkov Prize Philately

• In August 1951, the USSR Post issued a series of postage stamps “Scientists of our Motherland”, one of the miniatures of which was dedicated to P. N. Yablochkov.
• In 1987, the USSR Ministry of Communications issued an artistic marked envelope (KhMK) dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the birth of P. N. Yablochkov.
• In 1997, KhMK was released in Russia with the original stamp, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the inventor.
• In 2001, Russian Post issued a KhMK dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the invention of the arc lamp.

KhMK Post of the USSR. 140 years since the birth of Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov (1987)	KhMK with OM of Russia. 150 years since the birth of Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov (1997)	KhMK Russia. 125th anniversary of the invention of the arc lamp (2001)

see also

Notes

Literature

• Brachev V.S. Masons in Russia: from Peter I to the present day ().
• Ivanov A. Electrification of Gatchina until 1881 // Historical magazine “Gatchina through the centuries” ().
• History of the Saratov region 1590-1917: Reader. - Second ed., revised. and additional/ edited by V. A. Osipova, Z. E. Gusakova, V. M. Gochlerner.- Saratov: Saratov University Publishing House, 1983. - P. 122-123, P. 126-127.
• Kaptsov N. A. Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov, 1847-1894: His life and work. - M.: Gostekhizdat, 1957. - 96 p. - (People of Russian science).
• Kaptsov N. A. Yablochkov - the glory and pride of Russian electrical engineering (1847-1894). - M: Military Publishing House of the Ministry of Armed Forces of the USSR, 1948.
• Korzinov N. Advances in electric lighting and the merits of P. N. Yablochkov (article from the magazine “Science and Life” No. 39 for 1890) // Science and Life, 2010 ().
• Kuvanov A. He gave the world Russian light // Lenin’s Path. - September 27, 1973
• Kuznetsov I. So where was Yablochkov born? // Crossroads of Russia. - June 20, 2000
• Malinin G. A. Inventor of the “Russian light”: [About P. N. Yablochkov]. - Saratov: Volga Book Publishing House, 1984. - 112 p. - (Their names in the history of the region).
• Malinin G. A. Monuments and memorable places Saratov region (3rd edition, revised and supplemented). - Saratov: Volga Book Publishing House, 1979. - P. 215-217.
• P. N. Yablochkov. To the 50th anniversary of his death (1894-1944) / Ed. prof. L. D. Belkinda. - M., L.: State Energy Publishing House, 1944
• Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov. Proceedings. Documentation. Materials/holes ed. Corresponding member USSR Academy of Sciences M. A. Chatelain, comp. prof. L. D. Belkind. - M.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1954
• Pavlova O. V. Inventor of the “Russian light” // Crossroads of Russia. - September 13, 1997
• The homeland of the creator of the “Russian sun” plunged into darkness // Saratov News. - November 27, 2001. - P. 3
• Serkov A. I. Russian Freemasonry 1731-2000. encyclopedic Dictionary
• Chekanov A. A. Nikolai Nikolaevich Benardos. - M.: “Science”, 1983
• // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg, 1890-1907
• First Electric Light In A Theater // Ann Arbor Argus. - March 13, 1896 ().

Links

• Some of Yablochkov's patents:
• Freemasons and technical progress // Echo of Moscow. - April 21, 2010 ().
• Paris. Lodge Cosmos // Virtual server of Dmitry Galkovsky ().
• A new technology park named after Pavel Yablochkov has opened in Penza // story of the TV-Express TV channel (Penza) dated June 1, 2012 ().
• Historical information about the emergence of the city of Serdobsk
• Yablochkovo (Zhadovka) Serdobsky district, Penza region ().

Nobles and noble families
Beklemishevs · Blokhins · Borhi: Sofya Ivanovna · Vetchinin Alexander Alexandrovich · Vladykins: Vasily Mikhailovich · Vladimir Nikolaevich · Ivan Nikolaevich ·

Pavel Yablochkov and his invention

Exactly 140 years ago, on March 23, 1876, the great Russian inventor Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov patented his famous electric light bulb. Despite the fact that its life was short-lived, Yablochkov’s light bulb became a breakthrough for Russian science and the first invention of a Russian scientist to become widely known abroad.

Let's remember what contribution Yablochkov made to the development of electric lighting technology and what made him for a short time one of the most popular scientists in Europe.

The first arc lamps

In the first half of the 19th century, in the field of artificial lighting, gas lamps replaced candles that had dominated for centuries. Their dim light began to illuminate factories and shops, theaters and hotels, and, of course, the streets of night cities. However, despite being relatively easy to use, gas lamps had too little light output, and the lighting gas specially manufactured for them was by no means cheap.

With the discovery of electricity and the invention of the first current sources, it became clear that the future of lighting technology lies precisely in this area. The development of electric lighting initially went in two directions: the design of arc lamps and incandescent lamps. The principle of operation of the first was based on the effect ​electric arc, well known to everyone in electric welding. Since childhood, our parents forbade us to look at its blinding fire, and for good reason - an electric arc can generate an extremely bright source of light.

Arc lamps began to be widely used around the middle of the 19th century, when the French physicist Jean Bernard Foucault proposed using electrodes not from charcoal, but from retort coal, which significantly increased their burning time.

But such arc lamps required attention - as the electrodes burned out, it was necessary to maintain a constant distance between them so that the electric arc did not go out. For this, very cunning mechanisms were used, in particular the Foucault regulator, invented by the same French inventor. The regulator was very complex: the mechanism included three springs and required constant attention. All this made arc lamps extremely inconvenient to use. Russian inventor Pavel Yablochkov set out to solve this problem.

Yablochkov gets down to business

A native of Saratov, Yablochkov, who had shown a passion for invention since childhood, got a job as head of the telegraph service on the Moscow-Kursk railway in 1874. By this time, Pavel finally decided to concentrate his creative attention on improving the then existing arc lamps.

The railroad authorities, who knew about his hobby, offered the aspiring inventor an interesting job. A government train was supposed to travel from Moscow to Crimea, and to ensure its safety, it was decided to organize night lighting of the track for the driver.

One example of regulating mechanisms in arc lamps of that time

Yablochkov happily agreed, took with him an arc lamp with a Foucault regulator and, attaching it to the front of the locomotive, was on duty next to the searchlight every night all the way to the Crimea. About once every hour and a half he had to change the electrodes, and also constantly monitor the regulator. Despite the fact that the lighting experiment was generally successful, it was clear that this method could not be widely used. Yablochkov decided to try to improve the Foucault regulator to simplify the operation of the lamp.

Brilliant solution

In 1875, Yablochkov, while conducting an experiment in the laboratory on the electrolysis of table salt, accidentally caused an electric arc to appear between two parallel carbon electrodes. At that moment, Yablochkov came up with the idea of ​​how to improve the design of the arc lamp in such a way that the regulator would no longer be needed at all.

Yablochkov’s light bulb (or, as it was commonly called at that time, “Yablochkov’s candle”) was designed, like everything ingenious, quite simply. The carbon electrodes in it were located vertically and parallel to each other. The ends of the electrodes were connected by a thin metal thread, which ignited an arc, and between the electrodes there was a strip of insulating material. As the coals burned, the insulating material also burned.

This is what Yablochkov’s candle looked like. The red stripe is the insulating material

In the first models of the lamp, after a power outage, it was not possible to light the same candle, since there was no contact between the two already set electrodes. Later, Yablochkov began mixing powders of various metals into insulating strips, which, when the arc died out, formed a special strip at the end. This made it possible to reuse unburnt coals.

The burnt out electrodes were immediately replaced with new ones. This had to be done approximately once every two hours - that’s how long they lasted. Therefore, it was more logical to call Yablochkov’s light bulb a candle - it had to be changed even more often than a wax product. But it was hundreds of times brighter.

Worldwide recognition

Yablochkov completed the creation of his invention in 1876 already in Paris. He had to leave Moscow due to financial circumstances - although a talented inventor, Yablochkov was a mediocre entrepreneur, which, as a rule, resulted in bankruptcy and debts of all his enterprises.

In Paris, one of the world centers of science and progress, Yablochkov quickly achieves success with his invention. Having settled in the workshop of academician Louis Breguet, on March 23, 1876, Yablochkov received a patent, after which his business under someone else’s leadership began to go uphill.

In the same year, Yablochkov’s invention made a splash at an exhibition of physical devices in London. All major European consumers immediately begin to take an interest in them, and within just two years, Yablochkov’s candle appears on the streets of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome and a great many other European cities. Electric candles are replacing outdated lighting in theaters, shops, and rich homes. They even managed to illuminate the huge Parisian Hippodrome and the ruins of the Colosseum.

This is how Yablochkov’s candle illuminated Paris at night

Candles were sold in huge volumes for those times - the Breguet plant produced 8 thousand pieces daily. Subsequent improvements by Yablochkov himself also contributed to demand. Thus, with the help of impurities added to the ​kaolin insulator, Yablochkov achieved a softer and more pleasant spectrum of emitted light.

And so - London

In Russia, Yablochkov candles first appeared in 1878 in St. Petersburg. In the same year, the inventor temporarily returned to his homeland. Here he is warmly greeted with honors and congratulations. The purpose of the return was to create a commercial enterprise that would help speed up electrification and promote the spread of electric lamps in Russia.

However, the already mentioned meager entrepreneurial talents of the inventor, coupled with the traditional inertia and bias of Russian bureaucrats, prevented grandiose plans. Despite the large injections of money, Yablochkov’s candles did not receive such distribution in Russia as in Europe.

Sunset Yablochkov candle

In fact, the decline of arc lamps began even before Yablochkov invented his candle. Many people don’t know this, but the world’s first patent for an incandescent lamp was also received by a Russian scientist - ​Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin. And this was done back in 1874.

Yablochkov, of course, knew very well about Lodygin’s inventions. Moreover, indirectly he himself took part in the development of the first incandescent lamps. In 1875-76, while working on an insulating partition for his candle, Yablochkov discovered the possibility of using koalin as a filament in such lamps. But the inventor considered that incandescent lamps had no future and until the end of his days he did not purposefully work on their design. History has shown that Yablochkov was grossly mistaken in this.

In the second half of the 1870s, the American inventor Thomas Edison patented his incandescent lamp with a carbon filament, the service life of which was 40 hours. Despite many disadvantages, it is quickly beginning to replace arc lamps. And already in the 1890s, the light bulb took on a familiar form - the same Alexander Lodygin first suggested using filament for making refractory metals, including tungsten, and twist them into a spiral, and then first pump out the air from the flask to increase the service life of the filament. The world's first commercial incandescent lamp with a twisted tungsten spiral was produced precisely according to Lodygin's patent.

One of Lodygin's lamps

Yablochkov practically missed this revolution of electric lighting, having died suddenly in 1894, at the age of 47. Early death was the result of poisoning with poisonous chlorine, with which the inventor worked a lot in experiments. During his short life, Yablochkov managed to create several more useful inventions - the world's first alternating current generator and transformer, as well as wooden separators for chemical batteries, which are still used today.

And although the Yablochkov candle in its original form has sunk into oblivion, like all arc lamps of that time, it continues to exist in a new quality today - in the form of gas-discharge lamps, which have recently been widely introduced instead of incandescent lamps. Well-known neon, xenon or mercury lamps (also called " ​fluorescent lamps") work based on the same principle as the legendary Yablochkov candle.

Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov (1847-1894)

Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov, a remarkable inventor, designer and scientist, had a tremendous influence on the development of modern electrical engineering. His name still does not leave the pages of scientific electrical engineering literature. His scientific and technical heritage is very significant, although it has not yet been systematically studied.

Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov was born on September 14, 1847 on his father’s family estate in the village. Tales about the village. Petropavlovsk Serdobsky district, Saratov province. His father was known as a very demanding and strict man. There was a small estate in good condition, and the Yablochkov family, although not rich, lived in abundance; There were every opportunity for the good upbringing and education of children.

Very little information has been preserved about the childhood and adolescence of P. N. Yablochkov. It is only known that from childhood the boy was distinguished by an inquisitive mind, good abilities and loved to build and design. At the age of 12, he came up with, for example, a special goniometer tool, which turned out to be very simple and convenient for land surveying work. The surrounding peasants willingly used it during land redistribution. Home schooling was soon replaced by gymnasium classes in Saratov. Until 1862, P. N. Yablochkov studied at the Saratov gymnasium, where he was considered a capable student. However, three years later Pavel Nikolaevich was in St. Petersburg, in a preparatory boarding school run by the later famous military engineer and composer Caesar Antonovich Cui. It can be assumed that Yablochkov’s special love for design and the general interest that he showed in technology from an early age forced him to leave the gymnasium bench and prepare to enter such a school. educational institution, in which there would be enough opportunity for the development of a young man's engineering inclinations. In 1863 Pavel Nikolaevich entered the Military Engineering School and thus chose the career of an engineer.

But the military school, with its intensive drill training, with a general bias towards training in fortification and the construction of various military engineering structures, was not able to satisfy the inquisitive young man, full of various technical interests. Only the presence of such outstanding Russian scientists as Ostrogradsky, Pauker, Vyshnegradsky and others among the teachers smoothed out many of the shortcomings of teaching. Released in August 1866 as a second lieutenant in the 5th engineer battalion of the engineering team of the Kyiv fortress, P. N. Yablochkov entered the engineering field to which he so aspired. However, his work gave him almost no opportunity to develop his creative powers. He served as an officer for only 15 months and at the end of 1867 he was dismissed due to illness. The enormous interest that everyone showed at that time in the use of electricity for practical purposes could not but affect P. N. Yablochkov. By this time, both abroad and in Russia, many important works and inventions had been done in the field of electrical engineering. Only recently, based on the work of the Russian scientist P. L. Schilling, the electromagnetic telegraph received wide use; few years have passed since the successful experiments of the St. Petersburg professor and academician B. S. Jacobi on the use of an electric motor to move a ship and since the day he invented galvanoplasty; The important works of Wheatstone and Siemens, who discovered the principle of self-induction and laid the practical foundation for the construction of dynamos, had just become known. At that time, the only school in Russia where it was possible to study electrical engineering was the Officer Galvanic Classes. And in 1868, one could again see P. N. Yablochkov in an officer’s uniform as a student of this school, which for a year taught military mines, demolition technology, the design and use of galvanic elements, and military telegraphy. At the beginning of 1869, P. N. Yablochkov, after completing galvanic classes, was re-enlisted in his battalion, where he became the head of the galvanic team, simultaneously serving as a battalion adjutant, whose duties were in charge of office work and reporting.

Having studied the fundamentals of modern electrical engineering in galvanic classes, P. N. Yablochkov understood better than before what enormous prospects electricity had in military affairs and in everyday life. But the atmosphere of conservatism, limitation and stagnation in active military service again made itself felt. Hence Yablochkov’s decisive step - leaving military service after the mandatory one-year period and leaving forever. In 1870 he retired; This ended his military career and began his activity as an electrical engineer, which lasted continuously until his death, a rich and varied activity.

The only area in which electricity was already firmly in use during these years was the telegraph, and P. N. Yablochkov, immediately after retiring, took the post of head of the telegraph service of the Moscow-Kursk Railway, where he could come into direct contact with various issues of practical electrical engineering that deeply interested him.

In Moscow at this time there were already many people interested in electrical engineering. The Natural History Society has been widely debated critical issues related to the use of electricity. Not long before this, the Polytechnic Museum, which was created, was a place where Moscow pioneers of electrical engineering gathered. Here the opportunity opened up for Yablochkov to do experiments. At the end of 1873, he managed to meet with the outstanding Russian electrical engineer V. N. Chikolev. From him Pavel Nikolaevich learned about good luck with your work A. N. Lodygina on the design and use of incandescent lamps. These meetings had a tremendous influence on P. N. Yablochkov. He decided to devote his experiments to the use of electric current for lighting purposes and by the end of 1874 he was so immersed in his work that his service as head of the telegraph of the Moscow-Kursk Railway, with its petty daily worries, became little interesting and even shy for him. P. N. Yablochkov leaves her and completely devotes himself to his scientific studies and experiments.

He is equipping a workshop for physical instruments in Moscow. Here he managed to build an electromagnet of an original design - his first invention, and here he began his other works. However, the business of the workshop and the store attached to it was going poorly and could not provide by the necessary means neither Yablochkov himself nor his work. On the contrary, the workshop absorbed P. N. Yablochkov’s significant personal funds, and he was forced to interrupt his experiments for a while and begin to carry out some orders, such as, for example, the installation of electric lighting for the railway track from a steam locomotive to ensure safe passage royal family to Crimea. This work was successfully carried out by P. N. Yablochkov and was the first case of electric lighting on railways in world practice.

In his workshop, Pavel Nikolaevich did many experiments on blower lamps, studied their shortcomings, and realized that correct solution the question of regulating the distance between coals, i.e. the question of regulators, will be of decisive importance for electric lighting.

However, Yablochkov’s financial affairs were completely upset. His own workshop fell into disrepair, since Pavel Nikolaevich did little of it, and spent all his time on his experiments. Feeling the futility of his work in technically backward Russia in the 70s, he decided to go to America to the opening Philadelphia exhibition, where he hoped to get acquainted with electrical innovations and at the same time exhibit his electromagnet. In the fall of 1875, P. N. Yablochkov left, but due to the lack of funds to continue the trip, he remained in Paris, where a lot of diverse and interesting work on the use of electricity was then carried out. Here he met with the famous mechanical designer Academician Breguet.

Breguet immediately identified in P.N. Yablochkov the presence of outstanding design abilities and invited him to work in his workshops, in which at that time the construction of telegraph apparatus and electrical machines was carried out mainly. Having started work in Breguet's workshops in October 1875, P. N. Yablochkov did not stop his main work - improving the regulator for the arc lamp, and already at the end of this year he fully formalized the design of the arc lamp, which, having found wide use under the name " electric candle", or "Yablochkov candle", made a complete revolution in the technology of electric lighting. This revolution caused fundamental changes in electrical engineering, as it opened a wide path to the use of electric current, in particular alternating current, for significant practical needs.

March 23, 1876 is the formal date of birth of Yablochkov’s candle: on this day he was given the first privilege in France, which was then followed by a number of other privileges in France and other countries in new source light and its improvement. Yablochkov's candle was exceptionally simple and was an arc lamp without a regulator. Two parallel coal rods had a kaolin gasket between them along the entire height (in the first candle designs, one of the coals was enclosed in a kaolin tube); each of the coals was clamped with its lower end into a separate terminal of the lamp; these terminals were connected to the battery poles or connected to the network. Between the upper ends of the coal rods, a plate of non-conductive material (“fuse”) was strengthened, connecting both coals to each other. When current passed, the fuse burned out, and an arc appeared between the ends of the carbon electrodes, the flame of which created illumination and, gradually melting the kaolin during the combustion of coals, the base of the rods also decreased. When an arc lamp is powered with direct current, positive carbon burns twice as fast; in order to avoid extinguishing the Yablochkov candle when powered by direct current, it was necessary to make the positive carbon twice as thick as the negative one. P. N. Yablochkov immediately established that powering his candle with alternating current is more rational, since in this case both coals can be exactly the same and will burn evenly. Therefore, the use of the Yablochkov candle led to the widespread use of alternating current.

The success of Yablochkov's candle exceeded our wildest expectations. In April 1876, at an exhibition of physical instruments in London, Yablochkov's candle was the highlight of the exhibition. Literally the entire world technical and general press was full of information about the new light source and confidence that a new era was beginning in the development of electrical engineering. But for the practical use of the candle, many more issues had to be resolved, without which it was impossible to carry out economically profitable and rational exploitation of the new invention. It was necessary to provide lighting installations with alternating current generators. It was necessary to create the possibility of simultaneous burning of an arbitrary number of candles in one circuit (until that time, each individual arc lamp was powered by an independent generator). It was necessary to create the possibility of long-term and continuous lighting with candles (each candle burned out for 1 1/2 hours).

The great merit of P. N. Yablochkov is that all these extremely important technical issues received the fastest resolution with the direct participation of the inventor himself. P. N. Yablochkov ensured that the famous designer Zinovy ​​Gramm began producing alternating current machines. Alternating current soon gained decisive dominance in electrical engineering. Designers of electrical machines for the first time seriously began to build alternating current machines, and P. N. Yablochkov was responsible for the development of current distribution systems using induction devices (1876), which were the predecessors of modern transformers. P. N. Yablochkov was the first in the world to face the issue of power factor: during experiments with capacitors (1877), he first discovered that the sum of the currents in the branches of the circuit was greater than the current in the circuit before the branching. Yablochkov's candle had a decisive influence on many other works in the field of electric lighting, giving, in particular, impetus to the development of scientific photometry. P. N. Yablochkov himself turned to building electric machines.

At the end of 1876, P. N. Yablochkov made an attempt to apply his inventions in his homeland and went to Russia. This was on the eve of the Turkish war. P. N. Yablochkov was not a practical businessman. He was received with complete indifference, and essentially failed to do anything in Russia. He, however, received permission to set up experimental electric lighting at the Birzula railway station, where he carried out successful lighting experiments in December 1876. But these experiments did not attract attention, and P. N. Yablochkov was forced to leave for Paris again, severely shocked by this attitude towards his inventions. However, how true patriot I never left my homeland with the idea of ​​seeing my inventions implemented in Russia.

Since 1878, Yablochkov candles began to be widely used abroad. A syndicate was created, which in January 1878 turned into a society for the exploitation of Yablochkov’s patents. Within 1 1/2-2 years, Yablochkov’s inventions traveled around the world. After the first installations in 1876 in Paris (Louvre department store, Chatelet theater, Place de l'Opéra, etc.), Yablochkov candle lighting devices appeared in literally all countries of the world. Pavel Nikolaevich wrote to one of his friends at that time: “From Paris, electric lighting spread throughout the world, reaching the palaces of the Shah of Persia and the King of Cambodia.” It is difficult to convey the delight with which lighting with electric candles was greeted all over the world. Pavel Nikolaevich became one of the most popular faces of industrial France and the whole world. The new method of lighting was called “Russian light”, “northern light”. The Society for the Exploitation of Yablochkov's Patents received enormous profits and could not cope with the surging mass of orders.

Having achieved brilliant success abroad, P. N. Yablochkov again returned to the idea of ​​​​becoming useful to his homeland, but he was unable to achieve War Ministry Alexander II took over for exploitation the Russian privilege he declared in 1877. He was forced to sell it to the French Society.

The merits of P. N. Yablochkov and the enormous significance of his candle were recognized by the most authoritative scientific institutions. A number of reports were devoted to it in French Academy and in the largest scientific societies.

Years of brilliant successes of candles finally cemented the victory of electric lighting over gas lighting. Therefore, design thought continued to continuously work on improving electric lighting. P. N. Yablochkov himself built a different type of electric light bulb, the so-called “kaolin” one, the glow of which came from fire-resistant bodies heated by electric current. This principle was new and promising for its time; however, P. N. Yablochkov did not delve into the work on the kaolin lamp. As you know, this principle was applied a quarter of a century later in the Nernst lamp. Work also intensified on arc lamps with regulators, since the electric candle was of little use for floodlights and similar intensive lighting installations. At the same time, Lodygin in Russia, and a little later Lane-Fox and Swan in England, Maxim and Edison in America, managed to complete the development of incandescent lamps, which not only became a serious competitor to the candle, but also replaced it in a fairly short time.

In 1878, when the candle was still in its brilliant period of use, P. N. Yablochkov decided to once again go to his homeland to exploit his invention. Returning to his homeland was associated with great sacrifices for the inventor: he had to buy out the Russian privilege from French society and had to pay about a million francs for this. He decided to do this and came to Russia without funds, but full of energy and hopes.

Arriving in Russia, Pavel Nikolaevich encountered great interest in his work from various circles. Funds were found to finance the enterprise. He had to re-create workshops and conduct numerous financial and commercial affairs. Since 1879, many installations with Yablochkov candles appeared in the capital, the first of which illuminated the Liteiny Bridge. Paying tribute to the times, P. N. Yablochkov also began a small production of incandescent lamps in his workshops. The commercial direction, which P. N. Yablochkov’s work in St. Petersburg predominantly received this time, did not bring him satisfaction. It did not ease his heavy mood that his work on designing an electric machine and his activities in organizing the electrical engineering department at the Russian Academy of Sciences were progressing successfully. technical society, of which Pavel Nikolaevich was elected vice-chairman.

He put a lot of work into founding the first Russian electrical engineering magazine, Electricity, which began to be published in 1880. On March 21, 1879, he read a report on electric lighting at the Russian Technical Society. The Russian technical community honored him with the award of the Society's medal for the fact that “he was the first to achieve a satisfactory solution in practice to the issue of electric lighting.” However, these external signs of attention were not sufficient to create P. N. Yablochkova good conditions work. Pavel Nikolaevich saw that in backward Russia in the early 80s there were too few opportunities to implement it technical ideas, in particular for the production of electrical machines built by him. He was again drawn to Paris, where so recently happiness had smiled upon him. Returning to Paris in 1880, P. N. Yablochkov again entered the service of the Society for the exploitation of his inventions, sold his patent for a dynamo to the Society and began preparing to participate in the first World Electrotechnical Exhibition, scheduled to open in Paris in 1881. At the beginning of 1881, P. N. Yablochkov left his service in the Company and devoted himself entirely to design work.

At the electrical exhibition of 1881, Yablochkov's inventions received the highest award: they were recognized out of competition. Scientific and technical official spheres highly valued his authority, and Pavel Nikolaevich was appointed a member of the international jury for reviewing exhibits and awarding awards. The 1881 exhibition itself was a triumph for the incandescent lamp: the electric candle began to decline.

From that time on, P. N. Yablochkov devoted himself to working on electric current generators - dynamos and galvanic elements; he never returned to the light sources.

P. N. Yablochkov received a number of patents for electric machines in subsequent years: for a magneto-electric machine of alternating current without rotational motion (later the famous electrical engineer Nikola Tesla built a machine on this principle); to a magnetic-dynamo-electric machine built on the principle of unipolar machines; an alternating current machine with a rotating inductor, the poles of which were located on a helical line; to an electric motor that can operate on both alternating and direct current and can also serve as a generator. P. N. Yablochkov also designed a machine for direct and alternating currents, operating on the principle of electrostatic induction. A completely original design is the so-called “Yablochkov cliptic dynamo.”

Pavel Nikolaevich's work in the field of galvanic cells and batteries and the patents he took reveal the exceptional depth and progressiveness of his plans. In these works, he deeply studied the essence of the processes occurring in galvanic cells and batteries. He built: combustion elements, which used the combustion reaction as a source of current; elements with alkali metals (sodium); three-electrode element (car battery) and many others. These works of his show that he worked with persistent consistency to find the possibility of direct application chemical energy for the purposes of high current electrical engineering. The path that Yablochkov followed in these works is a revolutionary path not only for his time, but also for modern technology. Successes along this path could open a new era in electrical engineering.

In continuous work, in difficult material conditions, P. N. Yablochkov conducted his experiments in the period 1881-1893. He lived in Paris as a private citizen, completely devoting himself to scientific problems, skillfully experimenting and introducing many original ideas into his work, heading in bold and unexpected ways, ahead of the contemporary state of science, technology and industry. An explosion that occurred in his laboratory during experiments almost cost him his life. The continuous deterioration of his financial situation, progressive severe heart disease - all this undermined the strength of P. N. Yablochkov. He decided to go home again after a 13-year absence. In July 1893 he left for Russia, but immediately upon arrival he became very ill. On the estate he found the economy so neglected that he had no hope of improving material conditions. Pavel Nikolaevich with his wife and son settled in a hotel in Saratov. Sick, confined to a sofa with severe dropsy, deprived of almost any means of subsistence, he continued to conduct experiments.

On March 31, 1894, the heart of a talented Russian scientist and designer, one of the brilliant pioneers of electrical engineering, whose work and ideas make our homeland proud, stopped beating.

The main works of P. N. Yablochkov: On the new battery, called the auto-accumulator, "Comptes Rendues de l`Ac. des Sciences", Paris, 1885, t. 100; About electric lighting. Public lecture of the Russian Technical. society, read on April 4, 1879, St. Petersburg, 1879 (also included in the book: P. N. Yablochkov. On the fiftieth anniversary of his death, M.-L., 1944).

About P. N. Yablochkov: Persky K.D., Life and works of P.N. Yablochkov, “Proceedings of the 1st All-Russian Electrotechnical Congress in St. Petersburg in 1899-1900,” St. Petersburg, 1901, vol. 1; Zabarinsky P., Yablochkov, ed. "Young Guard", M., 1938; Chatelain M. A.,. Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov (biographical sketch), "Electricity", 1926, No. 12; P. N. Yablochkov. To the fiftieth anniversary of his death, ed. prof. L. D. Belkinda; M.-L., 1944; Kaptsov N, A., Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov, M.-L., 1944,

Nowadays, it is difficult to imagine that the word “electrical engineering” was not known only about 100 years ago. In experimental science it is not as easy to find a discoverer as in theoretical science. In the textbooks it’s written like this: the Pythagorean theorem, Newton’s binomial, the Copernican system, Einstein’s theory, the periodic table... But not everyone knows the name of the one who invented electric light.

Who created a glass bulb with metal hairs inside - an electric light bulb? It's not easy to answer this question. After all, it is connected with dozens of scientists. In their ranks is Pavel Yablochkov, whose short biography is presented in our article. This Russian inventor stands out not only for his height (198 cm), but also for his work. His work marked the beginning of lighting using electricity. It is not for nothing that the figure of such a researcher as Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov still enjoys authority in the scientific community. What did he invent? You will find the answer to this question, as well as many other interesting information about Pavel Nikolaevich, in our article.

Origin, years of study

When Pavel Yablochkov (his photo is presented above) was born, there was cholera in the Volga region. His parents were frightened by the great pestilence, so they did not take the child to church for baptism. Historians tried in vain to find Yablochkov’s name in church records. His parents were small landowners, and Pavel Yablochkov’s childhood passed quietly, in a large landowner’s house with half-empty rooms, a mezzanine and orchards.

When Pavel was 11 years old, he went to study at the Saratov gymnasium. It should be noted that 4 years before this, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, a freethinking teacher, left this educational institution for the St. Petersburg cadet corps. Pavel Yablochkov did not study at the gymnasium for long. After some time, his family became very poor. There was only one way out of this situation - a military career, which had already become a real family tradition. And Pavel Yablochkov went to the Pavlovsk Royal Palace in St. Petersburg, which was called the Engineering Castle after its residents.

Yablochkov - military engineer

The Sevastopol campaign at this time was still in the recent past (less than ten years had passed). It demonstrated sailor valor, as well as the high art of domestic fortifiers. Military engineering was in high esteem in those years. General E.I. Totleben, who became famous during the Crimean War, personally nurtured the engineering school where Pavel Yablochkov was now studying.

His biography during these years is marked by his residence in the boarding house of Caesar Antonovich Cui, an engineer-general who taught at this school. He was a talented specialist and an even more gifted composer and music critic. His romances and operas still live today. Perhaps these years spent in the capital were the happiest for Pavel Nikolaevich. No one urged him on; there were no patrons or creditors yet. Great insights had not yet come to him, however, the disappointments that subsequently filled his entire life had not yet occurred.

The first failure befell Yablochkov when, after completing his training, he was promoted to second lieutenant, sent to serve in the fifth Sapper Regiment, which belonged to the Kyiv fortress garrison. The battalion reality that Pavel Nikolaevich became acquainted with turned out to be little similar to the creative one interesting life engineer, who he dreamed of in St. Petersburg. Yablochkov did not become a military man: a year later he resigned “due to illness.”

First acquaintance with electricity

After this, the most unsettled period began in the life of Pavel Nikolaevich. However, it opens with one event, which turned out to be very important in his future fate. A year after his resignation, Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov suddenly finds himself in the army again. His biography after that took a completely different path...

The future inventor is undergoing training at the Technical Galvanic Institution. Here his knowledge in the field of “galvanism and magnetism” (the words “electrical engineering” did not yet exist at that time) expands and deepens. Many famous engineers and young scientists in their youth, like our hero, circled through life, trying things on, looking closely, looking for something, until suddenly they found what they were looking for. Then no temptation could lead them astray. In the same way, 22-year-old Pavel Nikolaevich found his calling - electricity. Yablochkov Pavel Nikolaevich dedicated his entire life to him. The inventions he made are all related to electricity.

Work in Moscow, new acquaintances

Pavel Nikolaevich finally leaves the army. He goes to Moscow and soon heads the department of the telegraph service of the Moscow-Kursk railway. Here he has a laboratory at his disposal, here he can already test some, albeit still timid, ideas. Pavel Nikolaevich also finds strong scientific society, uniting natural scientists. In Moscow, he learns about the Polytechnic Exhibition, which has just opened. It presents the latest achievements of domestic technology. Yablochkov has like-minded people, friends who, like him, are fascinated by electric sparks - tiny man-made lightning! With one of them, Nikolai Gavrilovich Glukhov, Pavel Nikolaevich decides to open his own “business”. We are talking about a universal electrical workshop.

Moving to Paris, patent for a candle

However, their “business” burst. This happened because the inventors Glukhov and Yablochkov were not businessmen. In order to avoid debt prison, Pavel Nikolaevich urgently travels abroad. In the spring of 1876, in Paris, Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov received a patent for an “electric candle”. This invention would not have happened if not for previous advances in science. Therefore, we will briefly talk about them.

History of lamps before Yablochkov

Let’s make a short historical digression dedicated to lamps in order to explain the essence of Yablochkov’s most important invention, without getting into the technical jungle. The first lamp is a torch. It has been known to mankind since prehistoric times. Then (before Yablochkov) first the torch was invented, then the candle, after some time the kerosene lamp and, finally, the gas lantern. All these lamps, with all their diversity, are united by one common principle: something inside them burns when combined with oxygen.

Invention of the electric arc

V.V. Petrov, a talented Russian scientist, in 1802 described the experience of using galvanic cells. This inventor obtained an electric arc and created the world's first electric artificial light. Lightning are natural light. Humanity has known about it for a long time; another thing is that people did not understand its nature.

Modest Petrov did not send his work, written in Russian, anywhere. It was not known in Europe, so for a long time the honor of discovering the arc was attributed to the chemist Davy, the famous English chemist. Naturally, he knew nothing about Petrov’s achievement. He repeated his experiment 12 years later and named the arc in honor of Volta, the famous physicist from Italy. It is interesting that it has absolutely nothing to do with A. Volta himself.

Arc lamps and the inconveniences associated with them

The discovery of the Russian and English scientist gave impetus to the emergence of fundamentally new arc electrodes. In them, two electrodes came together, an arc flashed, after which a bright light. However, the inconvenience was that the carbon electrodes burned out after some time, and the distance between them increased. Eventually, the arc went out. It was necessary to constantly bring the electrodes closer together. This is how various differential, clock, manual and other adjustment mechanisms appeared, which, in turn, required vigilant observation. It is clear that each lamp of this kind was an extraordinary phenomenon.

The first incandescent lamp and its disadvantages

The French scientist Jobard proposed using an electric incandescent conductor for lighting, rather than an arc. Shanzhi, his compatriot, tried to create such a lamp. A. N. Lodygin, a Russian inventor, brought it to mind. He created the first practical incandescent light bulb. However, the coke rod inside it was very fragile and delicate. In addition, there was insufficient vacuum in the glass flask, so it quickly burned this rod. Because of this, in the mid-1870s they decided to put an end to the incandescent lamp. Inventors returned to the arc again. And that’s when Pavel Yablochkov appeared.

Electric candle

Unfortunately, we do not know how he invented the candle. Perhaps the idea of ​​it appeared when Pavel Nikolaevich was struggling with the regulators of the arc lamp he had installed. For the first time in the history of railways it was installed on a steam locomotive ( special train, who was traveling to Crimea with Tsar Alexander II). Perhaps the sight of the arc suddenly flashing in his workshop sank into his soul. There is a legend that in one of the Parisian cafes Yablochkov accidentally put two pencils next to each other on a table. And then it dawned on him: there is no need to bring anything closer together! Let the electrodes be nearby, because the fusible insulation that burns in the arc will be installed between them. This way the electrodes will burn and shorten at the same time! As they say, everything ingenious is simple.

How Yablochkov's candle conquered the world

The Yablochkov candle was really simple in its design. And this was her huge advantage. Businessmen who did not understand technology could understand its meaning. That is why Yablochkov’s candle conquered the world with unprecedented speed. Its first demonstration took place in the spring of 1876 in London. Pavel Nikolaevich, who just recently was running away from creditors, returned to Paris. The campaign to exploit the patents he owned arose instantly.

A special factory was founded that produced 8 thousand candles daily. They began to illuminate the famous shops and hotels of Paris, the indoor hippodrome and opera, and the port in Le Havre. A garland of lanterns appeared on Opera Street - an unprecedented sight, a real fairy tale. “Russian light” was on everyone’s lips. P.I. Tchaikovsky admired him in one of his letters. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev also wrote from Paris to his brother that Pavel Yablochkov had invented something completely new in the field of lighting. Pavel Nikolayevich noted later, not without pride, that electricity spread throughout the world precisely from the French capital and reached the courts of the King of Cambodia, and not the other way around - from America to Paris, as they say.

"Extinction" of a candle

The history of science is marked by amazing things! The entire electrical lighting technology of the world, led by P. N. Yablochkov, for about five years triumphantly moved, in essence, along a hopeless, false path. The candle celebration did not last very long, as did Yablochkov’s material independence. The candle did not immediately “go out”, but it could not withstand competition with incandescent lamps. The significant inconveniences she had contributed to this. This is a decrease in the luminous point during the combustion process, as well as fragility.

Of course, the work of Swan, Lodygin, Maxim, Edison, Nernst and other inventors of the incandescent lamp, in turn, did not immediately convince humanity of its advantages. Auer installed his cap on a gas burner in 1891. This cap increased the brightness of the latter. Even then, there were cases when the authorities decided to replace the installed electric lighting with gas. However, already during Pavel Nikolaevich’s lifetime it was clear that the candle he invented had no prospects. What is the reason that the name of the creator of the “Russian light” is firmly inscribed in the history of science to this day and has been surrounded by respect and honor for more than a hundred years?

The significance of Yablochkov’s invention

Yablochkov Pavel Nikolaevich was the first to establish electric light in people's minds. The lamp, which only yesterday was very rare, has already come closer to people today, has ceased to be some kind of overseas miracle, and has convinced people of its happy future. The turbulent and rather short history of this invention contributed to the solution of many pressing problems that faced the technology of that time.

Further biography of Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov

Pavel Nikolaevich lived short life, which was not very happy. After Pavel Yablochkov invented his candle, he worked a lot both in our country and abroad. However, none of his subsequent achievements influenced the progress of technology as much as his candle. Pavel Nikolaevich put a lot of work into creating the first electrical engineering magazine in our country called “Electricity”. It began publication in 1880. In addition, on March 21, 1879, Pavel Nikolaevich read a report on electric lighting at the Russian Technical Society. He was awarded the Society's medal for his achievements. However, these signs of attention turned out to be insufficient to ensure that Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov was provided with good working conditions. The inventor understood that in backward Russia in the 1880s there were few opportunities for the implementation of his technical ideas. One of them was the production of electric machines, which were built by Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov. short biography he was again marked by a move to Paris. Returning there in 1880, he sold the patent for the dynamo, after which he began preparations for participation in the World Electrotechnical Exhibition, which was held for the first time. Its opening was scheduled for 1881. At the beginning of this year, Pavel Nikolaevich Yablochkov devoted himself entirely to design work.

The short biography of this scientist continues with the fact that Yablochkov’s inventions received the highest award at the 1881 exhibition. They deserve recognition even outside of competition. His authority was high, and Yablochkov Pavel Nikolaevich became a member of the international jury, whose tasks included reviewing exhibits and deciding on awarding awards. It should be said that this exhibition itself was a triumph for the incandescent lamp. From that time on, the electric candle gradually began to decline.

In subsequent years, Yablochkov began working on galvanic cells and dynamos - electric current generators. The path that Pavel Nikolaevich followed in his works remains revolutionary in our time. Success on it could mark the beginning of a new era in electrical engineering. Yablochkov never returned to the light sources. In subsequent years, he invented several electrical machines and received patents for them.

The last years of the inventor's life

In the period from 1881 to 1893, Yablochkov conducted his experiments in difficult material conditions and in continuous labor. He lived in Paris, completely devoting himself to the problems of science. The scientist skillfully experimented, applied many original ideas in his work, following unexpected and very bold paths. Of course, he was ahead of the state of technology, science and industry of that time. The explosion that occurred during experiments in his laboratory almost cost Pavel Nikolaevich his life. The constant deterioration of his financial situation, as well as a heart disease that kept progressing, all undermined the inventor’s strength. After an absence of thirteen years, he decided to return to his homeland.

Pavel Nikolaevich left for Russia in July 1893, but became very ill immediately upon arrival. He found such a neglected economy on his estate that he could not even hope for an improvement in his financial situation. Together with his wife and son, Pavel Nikolaevich settled in a Saratov hotel. He continued his experiments even when he was sick and deprived of his livelihood.

Yablochkov Pavel Nikolaevich, whose discoveries are firmly inscribed in the history of science, died of heart disease at the age of 47 (in 1894), in the city of Saratov. Our homeland is proud of his ideas and works.

The great Russian electrical engineer was born on September 26, 1847 in the Saratov province. He was the first child in the family; subsequently the Yablochkovs had four more children - one boy and three girls. The father of the future inventor, Nikolai Pavlovich, was a small nobleman, after the reform of 1861 he worked as a peace mediator, and later as a justice of the peace for the Serdobsky district. The mother, Elizaveta Petrovna, took care of the household of a rather large family and, according to contemporaries, was distinguished by her imperious character.

Pavel Nikolaevich received his primary education in his parents' home; he was taught literacy, numeracy, writing and French. He had a penchant for technical work and design from an early age. Oral traditions report that as a teenager, Yablochkov independently built a land-measuring device, which was actively used by peasants during land redistribution. At the same time, Pavel came up with a device that was attached to the carriage wheel, allowing one to count the distance traveled. Unfortunately, none of these devices have survived to this day.

In 1859, Pavel Nikolaevich was sent to a civilian educational institution - the Saratov gymnasium. This, by the way, was sharply at odds with the traditions of the Yablochkov family, all of whose men were military men. Obviously the reason was physical state boy, by the age of twelve he was very thin and tall with weak lungs. Only children of nobles, clergy, merchants and officials studied at the Saratov men's gymnasium. Pupils from the lower strata were denied access. In the gymnasium there were widespread Physical punishment and rough treatment, and educational process instilled in teenagers only a persistent aversion to science. As a result, academic performance was low and students preferred to skip classes. Chernyshevsky, who worked within the walls of this institution from 1851 to 1853, gave a colorful description of the gymnasium teachers: “There are quite developed students. Teachers - laughter and grief. They have not heard of anything other than the Code of Laws, Filaret’s Catechism and the Moscow Gazette - autocracy, Orthodoxy, nationality...”

Under the current conditions, some parents preferred to take their children back; in November 1862, Yablochkov also went home. For some time he lived in the village of Petropavlovka in his parents' house, and when the question arose about continuing his education, he went to a military school - the Nikolaev Engineering School. Those wishing to get into this institution had to pass a special exam, which included chemistry, physics, drawing and a foreign language. In just six months, Pavel Nikolaevich managed to fill all the gaps in knowledge and successfully passed the entrance tests.

The Engineering School at that time was an excellent educational institution, which received quite a lot of attention. great attention. Domestic military engineering developed independently of any foreign views and was rich in advanced technical ideas. Only eminent scientists were involved in teaching at the school. Yablochkov was not among the teachers outstanding mathematician M.V. Ostrogradsky, however, his influence on the teaching of exact sciences was still fully felt. Pavel Nikolaevich’s teachers were: professor of structural mechanics G.E. Pauker, professor of fortification F.F. Laskovsky, professor of mechanics I.A. Vyshnegradsky and other scientific luminaries. IN Engineering school Junker Yablochkov received basic information on magnetism and electricity, and also studied fortification, attack and defense of fortresses, mine art, military communications, artillery, topography, tactics, construction art, mathematics, physics, chemistry, drawing, Russian and foreign languages.

In the summer of 1866, he graduated from college with the first category, was promoted to the rank of engineer-second lieutenant and assigned to Kyiv in the fifth sapper battalion.
Life in the engineer battalion turned out to be completely unbearable for Yablochkov. By that time, he had many technical ideas, but there was not a single opportunity to turn to their development, since military service interfered with this. It should be noted that at the same time (1867) the first practically usable self-excited generator was created, which gave rise to a real explosion of research in the field of electrical engineering. Various works in this area were carried out by technicians, scientists and simply amateurs in all major world powers. Pavel Nikolaevich, who had only basic information about electromagnetism, limited to the practice of exploding mines, among others, turned all his attention to the practical application of electricity.

At the end of 1867, Yablochkov submitted a report to the command with a request to be released from military service due to illness. For him, this was the only way to leave combat service and engage in research. For thirteen months, Pavel Nikolaevich was engaged in work in the field of electrical engineering. Accurate information about this period of his life has not been preserved, but, obviously, he was severely lacking in knowledge. In December 1869, with the previous rank of second lieutenant, he again decided to serve in the military and, taking advantage of the rights granted by his military rank, entered a special educational institution for officers - the St. Petersburg Galvanic Classes (by the way, the only place at that time where military electrical engineers were specially trained).

Here Pavel Nikolaevich became acquainted with advanced achievements in the field of using electric current, and also seriously supplemented his own training. By the 60s of the nineteenth century, Russia was already the homeland of deep theoretical research laws and properties of electricity, the birthplace of the most important and largest inventions in this area. The course of study lasted eight months, the main lectures, accompanied by experiments and exercises, were given by Professor F.F. Petrushevsky, and in the summer, students of the institution practiced exploding mines using galvanic current. At the end of the training, the officers underwent “naval” practice in Kronstadt, where they mastered the techniques of equipping, installing, testing and monitoring the serviceability of movable and stationary galvanic mines.

Each officer who completed the Galvanic classes was required to serve one year in the engineering forces without the right to leave or early dismissal. In this regard, Yablochkov returned to Kyiv again to the fifth sapper battalion. Here he headed the galvanic team located in the garrison, he was entrusted with the duties of a battalion adjutant and head. All this further limited his ability to work on electrical engineering problems. After serving his mandatory term, Pavel Nikolaevich resigned in 1871. After that, he never returned to military service, appearing in the documents with the rank of “retired lieutenant.”

The Kyiv period of Yablochkov’s life also includes his acquaintance with the teacher of one of the local schools, Lyubov Ilyinichna Nikitina, his first wife, whom he married in 1871. Unfortunately, Lyubov Nikitichna was seriously ill with tuberculosis and died at the age of 38. Three of Pavel Nikolaevich’s four children from this marriage inherited their mother’s illness and died at a young age.

At the end of 1871, the future inventor began a new life stage: from Kyiv he moved to Moscow. Where could a young engineer who wanted to devote himself to work in the field of electrical engineering get a job? In Russia at that time there was no electrical engineering industry as such, nor electrical laboratories. Yablochkov was offered the position of head of the telegraph of the Moscow-Kursk railway under construction. This telegraph had a good workshop created for the purpose of repairing equipment and equipment. The inventor happily agreed to this position, which gave him the opportunity to carry out the experiments he had planned and test his ideas.

In subsequent years, Pavel Nikolaevich communicated a lot with the capital’s electricians, assimilated and adopted their experience and knowledge. It can be said that Moscow turned out to be a huge school for Yablochkov, in which his exceptional technical skill finally crystallized. A huge influence on Pavel Nikolaevich’s professional growth was made by his acquaintance with the brilliant Russian electrician Vladimir Chikolev, who had remarkable inventive talent, supported by deep scientific training.

However, Yablochkov not only attended meetings of scientists and technicians. During his time working on the railroad, he managed to repair Trouvé's damaged electric motor, develop a project to modify the Gram machine, and present two unique inventions - a burner for detonating gas supplied to the combustion site through a layer of sand, and a device for capturing changes in air temperature in railway passenger cars. By the way, the circuit of this device included two Heusler tubes, which at that time were used exclusively as demonstration devices and had no practical applications. Working in fits and starts, since working on the telegraph took a lot of time, the young inventor examined various types of existing arc lamps, tried to improve regulators for them, made galvanic elements and compared their effect, and conducted experiments with the newly invented incandescent lamp of the A.N. system. Lodygina. And in the spring of 1874, Yablochkov managed to successfully complete the world's first installation of electric floodlights on a steam locomotive.

The experiments carried out by Lodygin in 1873 related to incandescent lamps, coupled with the solution proposed by Chikolev to the issue of creating an arc lamp, aroused great interest in new methods of lighting in society. Restaurants, large stores, and theaters began to strive to install electric lighting installations unprecedented before that time. Yablochkov, interested in the rising demand for items of electrical equipment, at the end of 1874 decided to organize his own laboratory-workshop of physical devices, capable of conducting experimental work and at the same time accepting orders from clients.

From the very beginning, things were going without much success; on the contrary, the electrical workshop constantly required the investment of Pavel Nikolaevich’s personal funds. However, the inventor was able to implement his planned designs. Since work in the workshop took up virtually all of the experimenter’s time, at the beginning of 1875 Yablochkov had to leave his service on the railway. His co-owner in the physical instrument workshop was a good friend, an electrical engineering enthusiast, Nikolai Glukhov, a retired artillery staff captain. Like Yablochkov, Glukhov invested all his funds in this institution, working there on issues of electrolysis and building a dynamo. Pavel Nikolaevich made new regulators for arc lamps and improved Plante batteries. Yablochkov and Glukhov conducted experiments on illuminating the square with a large spotlight that they installed on the roof of the house. And although the spotlight had to be removed at the request of the police, they became the pioneers of a separate field of lighting technology, which later received enormous practical significance(lighting of construction works, open workings, airfields). Yablochkov's workshop was the center of witty and daring electrical engineering projects, distinguished by originality and novelty. Many Moscow scientists and inventors liked to gather there; unique experiments were carried out here and new instruments were developed. In this workshop, Pavel Nikolaevich built an electromagnet of a unique design.

The principle of operation of an electric candle or arc light source without a regulator was invented by Yablochkov in October 1875. However, he still needed a lot of time to bring the lamp design to a suitable level. practical use kind. Unfortunately, the situation in the physical instrument workshop had become very difficult by this time. Yablochkov and Glukhov had many overdue orders, and bills from suppliers of equipment and materials had not been paid. The workshop enabled inventors to do a lot with their ideas, but as a commercial enterprise it failed. Pavel Nikolaevich's personal debts increased every day. His relatives refused to provide him with financial support, and his customers and creditors, having lost hope of receiving what was due to them, filed a lawsuit in commercial court. In connection with the threat of ending up in a debtor's prison, Yablochkov made an extremely difficult decision for himself. In October 1875, the inventor fled from creditors abroad. This act further tarnished his commercial reputation, but the invention was saved. After a fairly short time, Pavel Nikolaevich fully paid off all his debts.

The scientist chose Paris as his place of stay abroad, which in the 70s of the nineteenth century was the center of scientific and technical forces in the field of electrical engineering. France, together with England and Russia, occupied a leading position in this area, significantly ahead of the USA and Germany. The names of Gramm, du Moncel, Leblanc, Niodet and other French electricians were known to the entire scientific world. Arriving in Paris, Yablochkov first met with an outstanding figure in telegraphy, a member of the Paris Academy, Louis Breguet, who, among other things, was also the owner of a plant that produced various electrical instruments, chronometers and telegraphs. Pavel Nikolaevich took with him abroad only one of his structurally complete products - an electromagnet. The Russian inventor showed it to Breguet and also talked about some other technical ideas. Breguet immediately realized that before him was a talented inventor with enormous abilities, curious ideas and excellent knowledge of magnetism and electricity. He offered him a job without hesitation, and Yablochkov, who was only twenty-eight years old, immediately got to work. Pavel Nikolaevich worked mainly at the factory, but often experimented at home, in a modest room in the university part of Paris. Within a short time, he completed work on a whole series of devices he had previously invented and patented them.

On March 23, 1876, Yablochkov received a French patent for his most outstanding invention - an electric candle. Russian scientists managed to create the first economical, convenient and simple mass light source. about the candle quickly spread throughout Europe, marking the beginning new era in electrical engineering. The lightning success of the electric candle (or, as they said at that time, “Russian light”) was explained simply - electric lighting, previously presented only as a luxury item, overnight became accessible to everyone. Yablochkov, who went to the London Exhibition of Physical Instruments in the late spring of 1876 as an ordinary representative of the Breguet company, left England as a recognized and authoritative inventor. From Russian scientists present at the exhibition - former teacher Yablochkov, Professor Petrushevsky and Moscow Professor Vladimirsky - Russian scientific circles also learned about the electric candle.

In Paris, representatives of various commercial circles were already waiting for the inventor. Enterprising businessmen immediately realized what high profits could be made from the invention of an unknown Russian genius, who, moreover, was not distinguished by entrepreneurial abilities. Louis Breguet, having refused to produce and sell Yablochkov’s electric candles, introduced Pavel Nikolaevich to a certain Deneyrouz, who took upon himself the issues of its further promotion.

Deneyrouz was a native of Paris Polytechnic School, served in the navy, studied inventive activity. In particular, he was one of the developers of the Deneyrouz-Rouqueirol apparatus, the predecessor of Cousteau's scuba gear. Deneyrouz organized without any problems Joint-Stock Company for the study of electric lighting using Yablochkov's methods with a capital of seven million francs. In this organization, Pavel Nikolaevich was engaged in scientific and technical management, supervised the production of his candles and carried out their further improvements. The financial, commercial and organizational side remained with Deneyrouz and other shareholders. The company immediately secured monopoly rights to the production and sale of electric candles and other Yablochkov inventions throughout the world. Pavel Nikolaevich himself did not have the right to use his invention even in Russia.

The period of time 1876-1878 was very tense and extremely productive in Yablochkov’s life. He wrote: “The first work was the installation of lighting in the street of the Opera, as well as in the shops of the Louvre, in the great Chatelet theater and in some other places in Paris. In addition, lighting was provided for the bridge over the Thames, the port of Le Havre and the London Theater, and the Bolshoi Theater in St. Petersburg... It was from Paris that electricity spread throughout all countries of the world - to the king of Cambodia and the palaces of the Shah of Persia, and did not appear in Paris from America, as they now have the impudence to claim.” The Russian electrical engineer worked with passion, daily seeing the development of the work he had begun, and the attention to his work from scientific organizations. He gave presentations at the Society of Physicists and at the Paris Academy. Outstanding French physicists Saint-Clair Deville and Becquerel were especially familiar with his work. Yablochkov improved the design of the electric candle until it could be used in large lighting devices, and received five additions to the main patent. In addition, during his work abroad, Pavel Nikolaevich did a number of important discoveries– invented induction coils for dividing electric current (later this device was called a transformer), developed methods for dividing current using Leyden jars (capacitors), and made a kaolin lamp. In addition, Yablochkov patented several magneto-dynamoelectric machines of his own design.

The Paris Exhibition of 1878 was a triumph of electricity in general and a triumph of Yablochkov in particular. The pavilion with its exhibits was completely independent; it was built in the park surrounding the main exhibition building - the Palace of the Champs de Mars. The pavilion was constantly filled with visitors, who were shown various experiments without interruption in order to popularize electrical engineering. The exhibition was also visited by many domestic scientists.

Pavel Nikolaevich always said that his departure from Russia was temporary and forced. He dreamed of returning home and continuing his work in his homeland. By that time, all his debts on the old workshop had already been paid, and his commercial reputation had been restored. The only serious obstacle to moving to Russia was Yablochkov’s agreement with the company, according to which he could not independently implement his inventions anywhere. In addition, he had a lot of unfinished work, which he was working on at the company’s plant and to which he attached quite a lot of importance. In the end, Yablochkov decided to buy a license for the right to create electric lighting in our country using his own system. The possibilities of its spread in Russia seemed to him very great. The company administration also took this into account and charged a huge amount - a million francs, almost the entire block of shares owned by Yablochkov. Pavel Nikolaevich agreed, giving up his shares, he received complete freedom of action in his homeland.

At the end of 1878, the famous experimenter returned to St. Petersburg. Different layers of Russian society perceived his arrival differently. Scientific and technical circles, seeing Yablochkov as a founder new era in electrical engineering, welcomed the return of the most talented inventor and expressed respect for his merits. The government of Alexander II, which had secret reports from foreign agents about Yablochkov’s material support for political emigrants in need, gave him a series of verbal reprimands. Most of all, Pavel Nikolaevich was surprised by domestic entrepreneurs, who were rather indifferent to his arrival. Of all the ministries, by that time only Morskoe, which carried out only experiments with Yablochkov’s electric candle, was involved in the use of electricity, and the Ministry imperial court, who organized electric lighting for palaces and subordinate theaters.

Soon, Yablochkov managed to organize a partnership of faith, dealing with the production of electrical machines and electric lighting. To work in the partnership, Pavel Nikolaevich attracted experienced and well-known persons in domestic electrical engineering, among others, Chikolev and Lodygin. A number of demonstration lighting installations were successfully completed in St. Petersburg. Yablochkov's candles began to spread throughout the country. Chikolev describes this time in his memoirs as follows: “Pavel Nikolaevich came to St. Petersburg with a reputation of world fame and a millionaire. Whoever visited him - his excellency, his lordship, his excellency, countless others. Yablochkov was in great demand everywhere, his portraits were sold everywhere, and enthusiastic articles were devoted to magazines and newspapers.”

The Yablochkov Partnership completed the lighting of the square in front of the Alexandria Theater, the Palace Bridge, Gostiny Dvor and smaller objects - restaurants, workshops, mansions. In addition to working in the new organization, the scientist led a huge social activities, helping to increase the popularity of electrical engineering in Russia. In the spring of 1880, the world's first specialized exhibition on electrical engineering was held in St. Petersburg. Domestic scientists and designers, without inviting any foreigners to participate, independently filled it with works of their creative work and technical thought. All areas of electrical engineering were presented at the exhibition, and a temporary power station was built to display the exhibits. The exhibition opened in Salt Town and ran for twenty days, during which it was visited by over six thousand people - an impressive figure for that time. The exhibition owed such successes to a great extent to Yablochkov’s personal participation. The material income received was used as a fund to create the first domestic electrical engineering magazine “Electricity”, which began publication on July 1, 1880.

Meanwhile, Yablochkov’s hopes for the emergence of demand for electric lighting in Russia did not materialize. During the two years of the partnership's work (from 1879 to 1880), the matter was limited to only a relatively small number of installations, among which there was not a single large installation of permanent electric lighting. The financial side of the partnership suffered great losses, aggravated even more due to the unsuccessful management of affairs by the persons at the head of the commercial part of the enterprise.

At the beginning of 1881, Yablochkov again went to Paris, where, together with other eminent electrical engineers, he took an active part in the preparation of the International Electrotechnical Exhibition and the holding of the first International Congress of Electricians. For his hard work in preparing the exhibition of 1881 and in the work of the congress, Pavel Nikolaevich was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor. However, it was after this exhibition that it became clear to most scientists and technicians, including Yablochkov, that “Russian light,” which until recently was considered advanced and progressive, was beginning to lose its position as the best electric light source for the mass consumer. The leading position was gradually occupied by new electric lighting using incandescent lamps, in the invention of which the Russian scientist Alexander Lodygin played a significant role. It was his world's first models of incandescent lamps that were brought to the United States and presented to Edison by the domestic electrical engineer Khotinsky in 1876 during a trip to accept ships built for the Russian fleet.

Pavel Nikolaevich perceived reality absolutely soberly. It was clear to him that the electric candle had received a fatal blow and in a few years his invention would no longer be used anywhere. An electrical engineer has never been involved in the design of incandescent lamps, considering this direction of electric lighting to be less important compared to arc sources. Pavel Nikolaevich did not work on further improvement of the “Russian light”, assessing that there are many other issues in life that require solutions. He never returned to designing light sources. Absolutely rightly believing that successes in the field of obtaining simple and cheap electrical energy would entail a further increase in the use of electricity, Pavel Nikolaevich directed all his creative energy to the creation of generators operating on the principles of induction and electrochemical current generators.

From 1881 to 1893, Yablochkov worked in Paris, regularly making trips to Russia. It was an extremely difficult time for him. In Russia, in the eyes of ruling and financial circles, he found himself in the position of a debunked hero. Abroad, he was a stranger, having lost his shares, he no longer had weight in the company. His health was undermined by the backbreaking work of the past years; the inventor could no longer work as much and as diligently as before. He was ill almost all of 1883, suspending all his research. In 1884 he resumed work on generators and electric motors. At the same time, the scientist took up the problems of alternating current transmission. The study of the processes occurring in fuel cells turned out to be associated with the proximity of sodium vapor and a number of other substances harmful to breathing. Yablochkov’s private apartment was completely unsuited for carrying out work of this kind. However, the brilliant inventor did not have the means to create the appropriate conditions and continued to work, undermining his already weakened body. In his autobiographical notes, Pavel Nikolaevich wrote: “All my life I worked on industrial inventions, on which many people profited. I did not strive for wealth, but I expected to have at least enough money to set up a laboratory in which I could work on purely scientific issues, I'm interested in... However, my insecure condition forces me to abandon this thought...” During one experiment, the released gases exploded, almost killing Pavel Nikolaevich. In another experiment with chlorine, he burned the lining of his lungs and suffered from shortness of breath ever since.

In the 90s of the nineteenth century, Yablochkov received several new patents, but none of them brought material benefits. The inventor lived very poorly, while at the same time the French company exploiting his inventions turned into a powerful international corporation, which quickly switched to electrical engineering work of a different kind.

In 1889, during preparations for the next International Exhibition, Yablochkov, putting aside all his scientific research, began organizing the Russian department. One hundred Yablochkov lanterns shone at this exhibition for the last time. It is difficult to appreciate the colossal efforts that Pavel Nikolaevich made in order to give our department rich content and a worthy form. In addition, he provided all possible assistance to the arriving Russian engineers and ensured the greatest efficiency of their stay in France. The intense work at the exhibition did not pass without consequences for him - Yablochkov had two seizures, accompanied by partial paralysis.

At the end of 1892, Yablochkov finally returned to his homeland. Petersburg greeted the scientist coldly; his friend and comrade-in-arms Chikolev wrote: “He stayed in a simple room in an inexpensive hotel, only friends and acquaintances visited him - an invisible and poor people. And those who fawned on him at one time turned away from him. Even those who were put on their feet and ate bread at the expense of the partnership kicked him with their hoofs.” In St. Petersburg, a brilliant inventor fell ill. Together with his second wife Maria Nikolaevna and their only son Platon, Yablochkov moved to Saratov. His health deteriorated every day; the heart disease that Pavel Nikolaevich suffered from led to dropsy. The scientist's legs were swollen, and he hardly moved. At his request, a table was moved to the sofa, at which Yablochkov worked until the last day of his life. On March 31, 1894, he passed away. To an outstanding figure in world science, who with his works created an entire era in