Since the surname of Fedorovskiy appeared in the story about major, it’s time, perhaps, for the narrator to finish his “confusion instead of history”, and go back to the beginning. To tell, finally, where our Red Hogwarts all the same came from, how he appeared on this earth and who is guilty of this. Better late than never, yes.They were both provincials and peers - born in the 80s of the XIX century. Yes, both were still engaged in crystallography and mineralogy.
In all other respects, such dissimilar people are still to be searched.
The first, Dmitry Artemyev, was born in Nizhny Novgorod “in the family of an official,” as he always carefully pointed out in questionnaires. In fact, Papa Nikolay Ivanovich Artemyev, if he was an official, was very difficult. In his youth spent in Belarus, he was indeed “on the staff of the office of the Minsk Governor” for some time, but already in 1871, before the birth of his son, he served as a police overseer of the city of Kobrin, then served as police officer and assistant police chief in Perm. There, in Perm, he also served as the head of the Perm Correctional Arrest Department. That was the name of the notorious transit castle, which was set up outside the city on the famous Siberian highway, where the notorious Perm convoy delivered prisoners daily to Siberia to penal servitude and exile.
Perm Correctional-Arrest Department - photos of employees and a sign. Unfortunately, the photo is not dated, so one can only guess - is there Artemyev Sr. on it?Ordinary people did not get to such a position, but our hero's father really was a difficult person. Anyway, at the time of the lawful dismissal from the service, the pope already received hereditary nobility, and a little later, in 1896, he also acquired a personal estate in the Kostroma province and 300 hectares of land. In general, the Artemyevs lived well, but the papa kept his son and younger daughter in habit.
The second, Nikolai Fedorovsky, was born in Kursk, and the life of his family was the exact opposite of the orderly life of the family of the former guard. At the time of his birth in the asset, Olga Pavlovna’s mother was 28 years old, three children and her husband who escaped to Tashkent or to Siberia — his husband’s attorney, M.M. Fedorovskiy. A lover of grain cities has sunk into the water, and no one has heard of him anymore, so the mother pulled children alone, for the salary of a gymnasium teacher. Olga Pavlovna, of course, was a revolutionary, a member of the “Narodnaya Volya” party, and she had a long-term love affair with the same unreliable teacher of the same gymnasium. He was much younger than her, and perhaps that is why the family did not work out - a lover married another, and moved to Saratov, where he received the position of secretary of the city government. And all that is left in her life are children and students. One of my mother's students, by the way, was Lenin’s closest friend, Gleb Maksimilianovich Krzhizhanovsky, who retained a warm relationship with a teacher until the end of his life.
As you probably guessed, the boys' childhood was completely different. Artemyev was talented and hardworking and always frantically studied. At the age of nine papa gave him the best gymnasium in the city - the Nizhny Novgorod Noble Institute of Emperor Alexander II. The school he graduated brilliantly, and in 1901 entered the natural department of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Moscow University.
Scans of documents taken from the book O.A. Ivanov "History of the Moscow Mining Academy".Where, in fact, he began to study mineralogy and crystallography under the guidance of Professor V.I. Vernadsky.
Fedorovsky was no less talented, but all his childhood no less frenziedly hesitated - he made himself a nest on an oak tree from an old blanket, then he read avidly, then he took out the chickens with the warmth of his body, he was fond of pyrotechnics. Very early — not surprisingly — contacted revolutionaries, in 1904 he was admitted to the ranks of the Bolshevik Party, and six months later he was expelled from the gymnasium for anti-government activities. Without any concern for this, he fled to Moscow and took an active part in the First Russian Revolution. Conducted propaganda activities in the troops of the Moscow garrison, fought on the barricades during the December armed uprising, after his suppression fled to St. Petersburg. There the party was sent to Finland to prepare an uprising in the Sveaborg fortress. In order to promote the Baltic "brothers" published the illegal newspaper "Bulletin of the barracks" - the young man turned out to be a real talent of a journalist.
But Artemyev crammed textbooks at this time, earned a reputation at the faculty and hated the student Fersman, who was already familiar to us, his main rival in the fight for the title of “best student of the course”. Yes, you guessed correctly - Artemyev, of course, quickly became an active participant in that very “circle of favorite students of Professor Vernadsky,” which I already told you about. Leadership (and rivalry) Fersman and Artemyeva noted everything. Professor S. Fedorov’s wife (Artemiev’s supervisor) recalled in his memoirs how a group of university students came to their home for the first time:
“After their departure, Evgraf singled out Fersman and Artemyev, saying:“ These will understand me, I'm sure. ”D.N. Artemyev - MSU student. 1901. With photos of Artemyev some kind of mysticism. They are stupid nowhere, although dozens of photos remained from other people in his circle. It seems that someone deliberately removed them from everywhere. Anyway, this is the only surviving photo, where my hero is shown in close-up.In the meantime, Artemiev impressed the teachers with his dedication, diligence and careerism, Fedorovsky walked around the edge. The Sveaborg uprising was, as you know, suppressed with extreme cruelty - 38 active participants were shot, 720 people went to prison and to hard labor. The “Bolshevik Comrade Stepan from the newspaper”, known to all naval crews, was saved by a miracle. He was already led to the station, but on the way his “stomach twisted”, and he urged the guard to allow him to go to the street toilet - a poor establishment, somehow tacked with tin sheets. Inside, the prisoner climbed out of his boots - they were visible to the policeman from the street and, quietly turning off the rust tin on the other side of the toilet, ran barefoot.
After the suppression of the revolution of 1905-07. Fedorovsky, who was hiding in Saratov, passed the external examinations for eight classes of the gymnasium, received a certificate, went to Moscow and entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University to study physics.
Artemyev, meanwhile, in 1907, graduated from a university course with the highest grades and a first degree diploma, and was left to prepare for a professorship in the department of mineralogy and crystallography. However, in the same year he moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg, having entered the post of assistant to the Department of Crystallography and Mineralogy at the Mining Institute.
And in 1909, he surprised everyone: he married Elena Vitovna Tikhomirova, a rich widow who was much older than himself, who had three children after his first marriage: a daughter of 14 years old and sons of 12 and 8 years old. This marriage at all caused confusion at best. This is how the aforementioned L.V. recalled the husband’s reaction to the student’s marriage. Fedorova: “
They come from a wedding with Kupfer, both laugh - this is not a wife, but a mother! Kupfer made us laugh: he fussed and was amazed more than all of us. If this is a marriage of convenience, then I was sorry for Dmitry Nikolaevich. ” Looking ahead, I will say that nothing good came out of this marriage - in a few years, the wife of D.N. Artemyeva unexpectedly died in France for all, and the inheritance was divided into four parts between her husband and children.
And meanwhile, Fedorovsky, of course, did not quietly study. As you remember, in 1911, due to the well-known “Kasso circulars”, a terrible scandal occurred at Moscow State University, due to which many teachers left the university, including Vernadsky and Arshinov. The whole thing was traditionally accompanied by student unrest, in which our hero, of course, took an active part. As a result - the accusation of participation in a banned party gathering and expulsion from the university. The problem was aggravated by the fact that in 1908 Fedorovsky married the daughter of the exiled Pole Martha Guminskaya, and it was during their dismissal that their daughter was born.
It was necessary to provide for the family, and without a student card to tutor, as before, it was already impossible. Soon the money became very bad, so much so that Fedorovsky went to sell his high-school collection of minerals. But going to the store had rather unexpected consequences - the owner of the store, appreciating the quality of the collected collection, offered the visitor a side job - to go to the Urals, and to collect and buy stones there for educational collections sold in the store. The former student agreed without hesitation, but before leaving he decided to at least study the topic a little. It was then that, daily studying the funds of the Mineralogical Museum of Moscow State University, Fedorovsky met with the local collection keeper, a recent university graduate, a young German by the name of Fersman.
Here I will digress a little and notice that Fersman is really following me. He is omnipresent, and there are too many of them in these notes. The great Soviet geologist manages to come to me in almost every text, and not just once. And in general, it reminds me of the famous image from the poem by Mayakovsky: “Communism the ghost in Europe scoured, left and again loomed in the distance ...”. But I still will not write a separate essay about Fersman!
Here you have my favorite photo of the academician instead.
Professor M.M. Tetyaev and Academician A.E. Fersman (right). Vain waiting for the train to Irkutsk. Transbaikalia. 20s. Photo Archive Min. Museum them. A.E. Fersman RAN.
Here in my text Fersman will be like in this photo. Poorly visible.And already in the Urals there was a meeting, which became fateful for my hero. Fedorovsky, who prepared the stones, happened to meet with the expedition headed by the important lord - privy councilor and member of the State Council Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. The young man and his work interested the academician, and he out of the kindness of his soul suggested that the self-appointed geologist join the expedition for a week to learn at least the basics of practical mineralogy. Soon Vernadsky delivered a verdict - the newcomer had a “sharp look at the stones” and, if desired, he would make a good mineralogist. And then he offered a deal: he, using his scientific weight, seeks to restore Fedorovsky at the university, and he instead goes to the mineralogical department, sends the last parcel to the store and terminates the contract and starts working on his expedition tomorrow. For more, by the way, money.
So Fedorovsky again became a student and added the score to the students of Vernadsky. Having joined the group, he again encountered Fersman, and met Arshinov and Artemyev.
My heroes finally met.
Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky and his assistants at Moscow University in 1911. From left to right: Vissarion Vissarionovich Karandeev, Genrikh Osipovich Kasperovich, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, Alexander Evgenievich Fersman, Pavel Karlovich Aleksat. Photo Archive Min. Museum them. A.E. Fersman RAN.If Fedorovsky clearly experienced a white line in life, then at Artemyev - according to the law of opposites - everything was the other way around. The worst thing that could happen to a scientist happened to him.
The fact is that in 1912 the German physicist Max von Laue discovered the diffraction of x-rays on crystals, for which he soon won the Nobel Prize. And in the next, in 1913, on the basis of this discovery, the British father and son Bragg and the Russian scientist Georgy Viktorovich Woolf developed a method of X-ray analysis.
George V. WoolfAnd the problem was that Wolf was the main "scientific rival" Artemyev, because our careerist made a bet on alternative theory. Wulf worked on X-ray analysis, and our hero developed a crystallochemical analysis method, which has now become useless to no one. Simply put - once at a fork, Artemyev turned the wrong way, and the chosen scientific direction led him to a dead end. Ten years of hellish work flew to the need. And no one is to blame, just - no luck. In science it happens.
In 1914, D.N. Artemyev defended his master’s degree in mineralogy and geognosy at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute on the topic “Ball crystallization method and its use in studying the shape and structure of crystalline matter”. The thesis was published and even awarded the highest award of the St. Petersburg Mineralogical Society - the gold medal to them. A.I. Antipov.
But it was a consolation prize for the loser.
Dmitry Nikolaevich never got up after this strike. Artemyev didn’t have any fundamentally new ideas, and already in 1912 he began to slowly curtail his scientific activities, and after defending his thesis he completely stopped doing science, concentrating on teaching.
In the end, according to the formal indicators of his career developed just fine. In 1912, on the recommendation of the Mining Institute, he received the rank of court counselor (similar to the lieutenant colonel in the army), in 1914 he was awarded the Order of Saint Stanislav of the III degree. In 1915, Artemyev was appointed adjunct professor at the Department of Crystallography and Mineralogy of the Mining Institute, but almost immediately after that he went to work in Moscow, to the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute evacuated because of the war - they promised him a department there.
In 1913, the 60th anniversary of the scientific director D. Artemyev was solemnly celebrated, to which all his students gathered. Here is a photo from the anniversary, but is there Artemyev on it, and if so, where - we still do not know.And indeed, on arrival, he becomes head of the department of mineralogy. To the surprise of many, he takes to his department the laboratory assistant of a recent Moscow University graduate N.. Fedorovsky. Yes, reader, yes. Opposites often converge not only in books, but also in life. So my heroes became friends. After graduating, Fedorovskiy, of course, was offered to remain in the department; he really was a very talented geologist, Vernadsky was rarely mistaken in people. But the family revolutionary, as always, was desperately in need of money, so he preferred the fixed rate of a laboratory assistant to a hypothetical and unpaid “preparation for a professorship”. In addition, Artemiev promised a quick increase, and there was no reason not to believe him. Artemyev did not lie - soon Fedorovsky was already listed as a senior laboratory technician, and then he moved on to teaching.
In 1916, a new surprise happens - the institute is transferred to Nizhny Novgorod, and the Nizhny Novgorod Polytechnic Institute is organized on its basis. Friends move to the small home of Artemyev.
There, in Nizhny, the unintentional provincials had a brilliant, as it seemed to them, idea to transfer the mining department of the former Warsaw Polytechnic University to Moscow and organize the Moscow Mining Academy on its basis. As Fedorovsky later recalled:
“The very thought of creating a higher mountain educational institution in Moscow began in 1916 with me and prof. Artemyeva ... It seemed to us to be completely ridiculous to have a mining department in Nizhny Novgorod at a time when there was no higher mining school in such a large mental center as Moscow. We have launched a big campaign for the transfer of the mining department to Moscow. We were joined by Professor M.K. Zvigler and teacher G.V. Klyuchansky. There were a number of very stormy meetings, where the rest of the polytechnic school fell on us led by the “father of the city” - then well-known merchant Sirotkin, who was then the mayor’s head, who managed to eliminate all our undertakings .
”No, well, how did you want? Not only are you a “misguided Muscovite”, so you and your friends have also proposed “squandering the land”. Say thank you, that the city authorities did not push you out of the institute for such proposals!
Artemyev wiped away, but did not forget the insult. He generally badly forgot the insults. But then the February revolution happened and much became unimportant.
Because the biography of our heroes made a cool zigzag.
(to be continued)