En
Ru
Presidential Library marks Teachers' Day
Teachers' Day in Russia is celebrated on October 5th, 2024. Being a teacher is not just a job, it's a vocation and a mission. Many famous scientists, writers and poets dedicated themselves to teaching and became excellent teachers. This is reflected in the documents and materials available on the Presidential Library's portal.
In Vasily Avenarius' book Gogol's Student Years. The School of Life of the Great Humorist (1904), the author talks about two famous contemporaries - Gogol and Zhukovsky. Zhukovsky played a significant role in encouraging the young writer from Malorossiya region to pursue a career in teaching.
Finding a mentor like Zhukovsky for the future ruler was difficult, both in terms of character and intellect. To learn the methods of the renowned Swiss educator Johann Pestalozzi, Zhukovsky travelled to Switzerland. After returning to Russia, he developed a training plan for his young royal student, who was just 8 years old.
At one of the gatherings at Pyotr Pletnyov's house, Gogol waited until all the guests had departed, and then turned to the host with a request to "be so kind as to find him a position in the academic world." Pyotr suggested that Gogol consider trying his hand at teaching history at the Women's Patriotic Institute.
Pletnyov personally recommended the new teacher to the students. One of the students later described Nikolai in her memoirs as a "pale blond young man with an immense crest, a large pointed nose, quick brown eyes, and impetuous, hasty movements".
Leo Tolstoy's rich and diverse spiritual life also included a prominent role for pedagogical activities. The teacher Nikolai Tulupov describes this in his book Leo Tolstoy as a Teacher (1911).
The author writes about Tolstoy's passion for compiling an alphabet for children, where he wanted to include astronomical information. He took up astronomy and spent nights observing the starry sky. The Alphabet was published in November 1872, and Tolstoy said: "I am sure this alphabet has become a monument for me".
On the portal of the Presidential Library, a rare edition from 1872, The Alphabet by Count Leo Tolstoy is available for everyone.
The pedagogical activities of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a prominent Russian scientist and the founder of modern astronautics, who first justified the possibility of interplanetary communication and the use of rockets for this purpose, are interesting. Boris Vorobyov wrote about this in his book, Tsiolkovsky (1940). Although Tsiolkovsky suffered from a serious illness in his childhood and partially lost his hearing, he devoted most of his life to teaching. In his autobiography, published in Dreams of Earth and Heaven, the scientist wrote, "About 500 students and 2,000 girls graduated from high school under my guidance. I gave at least 40,000 lectures (I didn't like to talk about my deafness, so I used the lecture method). My students loved me for my fairness and my tireless explanations. I also didn't skimp on interesting experiments; a part of my salary went towards these experiments. I taught mathematics and physics (sometimes both), and occasionally gave lessons in cosmography and chemistry."
For more information about famous teachers and mentors, please visit the portal of the Presidential Library:
History of education in Russia Collection
https://www.prlib.ru/en/collections/682273
Teachers and mentors Section
https://www.prlib.ru/en/section/1910688
Tolstoy Leo (1828–1910) Section
