Red Hogwarts. Series 5. Astrologer
Today in release: the mad pismashinka in the People's Commissariat of Education; 85 year old sniper; to the question of the influence of solar activity on the revolution, “Pope, open the archives!” and much more.
Vartan Tigranovich was a minor demon. No, truth-truth - this phrase glorified by Fyodor Sologub described him ideally. But that was not the problem.
The problem was that he was a petty devil. Moreover, the curse hung on him is very rare - Vartan Tigranovich was cursed by luck. He was always lucky, and that was the main cause of all his problems. Therefore, it is best to start this essay like this:
Vartan Tigranovich Ter-Oganezov was a petty devil. Very lucky and therefore deeply unlucky petty demon.
All my non-positive heroes have some mystical problems with photos. This is his only image that I found. Figure L.N. Radlova.
He was born on October 10, 1890 in the city of Tiflis in the family of the collegiate registrar Tigran Vartanovich Ter-Oganezov. The collegiate registrar (also known as the “elistratie simple”) is - I will remind you - the fourteenth, the lowest rank of the famous “Table of Ranks”. He did not even give the rights to the personal nobility, only for honorary citizenship. The very rank of which Alexander “our everything” Alexander Pushkin very honestly wrote in the “Stationmaster”: “I am a martyr of the fourteenth class who was protected from his beatings by his rank, and that is not always the case.” The last remark is very significant, especially if we recall that one of the characters in the story “Laughter and Sorrow” by Nicholas “Lefty” Leskov calls collegiate registrars just as “Don't beat me into the snout.” In general, his dad was not the highest ranks.
Our hero's mother died early, leaving Vartan and his older sister Astghik orphans. But the boy also did not go to school, like his father - the collegiate registrar got married again, and soon our hero had two half-sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret or Zizi and Margo, as they all their life signed in letters.
In these times, of course, Vartan Tigranovich was not yet a minor demon. He was ordinary, rather, even a good boy. The boy, who is in peak with the surrounding small world, dreamed of a big one. But not about the big rank, but about the big one - in the global sense. I would even say eschatological. He often looked at the sky. And the sky in the south is a very special sky. There is neither a dumb father service, nor a stepmother, nor four children in the family who live on the collegiate registrar's penny salary ...
There are stars.
Neither rain nor snow,
Neither cloudy wind
At midnight cloudless hour,
Spreads the sky
Sparkling bowels
For vigilant and joyful eyes,
Treasures of the universe
Flicker, as if breathing,
Ringing little by little zenith,
And there are such people -
They hear perfectly,
Like a star with a star says:
-Hello!
-Hello!
-Shine?
- I shine.
-What time is it now?
- Twelfth approximately ...
There on Earth at this hour The
best seen of us
- But what about the children?
-Children? Sleep, probably ...
People who listen to how a star with a star says really exist, and while still a high school student, Ter-Oganezov became interested in astronomy. And he got carried away seriously - from the age of ten he corresponded with the chairman of the Russian Astronomical Society, one of the most famous astronomers of the empire, Sergey Pavlovich von Glasenap. And he was not the only one - for example, in February 1901 a fourth-grade pupil of the Fifth Kiev Gymnasium, Andrei Borysyak, who also corresponded with Glazenap, informed him about his observations of the new star in the constellation Perseus, which had reached a maximum of zero. Everything was confirmed in March at a meeting of the RAO S. P. Glazenap reported on the discovery of A. Borisyak, which was made several hours earlier than others, including foreign astronomers. Soon the high school student was elected a full member of the RAO,
High school student A. Borisyak
Ter-Oganezov did not discover anything, but he was already very lucky - fate gave him a chance to realize the dream. After graduating from high school, he did not go to work to help his family, but entered the university. Of course, at the Physics and Mathematics Department of St. Petersburg University, where, after many years of correspondence, he finally met Sergei Pavlovich and began to seriously study astronomy (later, however, he moved from Glazenap to Alexander Alexandrovich Ivanov). He studied well, at the age of 18, became a member of the Russian Astronomical Society, and in 1913-14 he published two articles on two-star orbits in the Proceedings of the Russian Astronomical Society. They were called “A note on the determination of the orbits of double stars” and “On the determination of the coefficient δ included in the equation for the visible ellipse of a double star”. Unfortunately,
Why all? But because human life is a permanent choice at the forks appearing before you, and some of the paths are painfully beckoning ... At one of these forks, a former good boy, now a promising young astronomer, chose a path that had very few chances to survive and good boy, and promising scientist.
Vartan graduated from the university at a very wrong time - in 1916, just a few months before the February Revolution. Crazy air of freedom doped then and much stronger people than my hero.
In general, it is surprising how much the algorithms of what is happening are the same at all times. I myself graduated from the university in the early 90s and remember very well those hollow corridors and half-empty audiences with teachers confused as kindergarteners abandoned by the teacher. And students who sell with burning eyes who jam, who preserves, who the air. And the recent honors pupils and Lenin scholars who left the university a year, or even a few months before graduation. Who needs these papers? There, outside the walls, the age-old foundations are crumbling, the state is falling, there are now such prospects shining, that the mind comes to mind and eyes mown to the bridge of the nose. What western and southern Slavs can now be, to whom your physical chemistry, high-molecular compounds and partial differential equations have surrendered?
It almost always ended the same way - in a couple of years potential dollar millionaires overslept appeared in the dean's office and, hiding their eyes, started talking about restoration and the ability to defend a diploma. However, a couple really lucky. Approximately as Vartan Ter-Oganezov.
This is how the great Russian astrophysicist Vsevolod Stratonov describes what is happening in his memoirs:
“Ter-Oganezov graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics in Petrograd and passed the exams well. Ivanov left him at the university scholarship in the department of astronomy. But after that he stopped practicing, declined to submit any report on his work as a fellow, and therefore was excluded from the list left at the university. In the fall of 1917, he came to confess to Ivanov, asking him to be restored to the position left at the university. Ivanov condescendingly went to meet him and promised, if Ter-Oganezov presented any work, to restore him to the position of a university scholar. He did not submit any work; but ... after that the Bolshevik coup took place, and Ter-Oganezov was at the head of all the scientists of the Russian institutions. ”
As we kindly tell the stickers in the messengers "This is a turn!". Yes, indeed, Vartan Tigranovich was indeed as if he had spontaneously originated in the depths of the People's Commissariat of Education. At least for all these years, no one could explain where he came from. He was not an old Bolshevik, just like a recent student of Fedorovsky - he joined the party of Ter-Oganezov only in 1918. He did not acquire high patrons, like Gorbunov, and did not even demonstrate a remarkable acumen or non-trivial organizational abilities. But, nevertheless, as early as November 1917, Ter-Oganezov entered the State Commission on Education, whose main goal was to form an education reform strategy and organize research, where he headed the so-called Scientific Department of the People's Commissariat of Education, a division created for this purpose.
There is only one option - it is not known what kind of fairy kissed his head in the cradle, but Ter-Oganezov was really impossible, incredibly lucky. It’s just not for nothing that lucky people in Russia always said: “This is the devil who enchants you”.
The chance to be at such an age at such a position falls out in life only once, and Vartan Tigranovich was smart enough to understand this. Therefore, stepping on the post impossible for yesterday's student, our hero showed some kind of utter activity. It would not be a big exaggeration to say that he really worked in the “mad typewriter” mode.
Exhaust, however, was small. So, out of all his legislative initiatives, only one lived to the end. The Decree on the Transition of the Hand of the Clock was issued on December 22, 1917, right between the decrees On the Delegation of the Delegation to Stockholm to Prepare for the Convocation of the Zimmerwald-Kienthal International Conference and the Decree on Universal Service for Clearing the Snow in Petrograd. It was signed by Lenin, Bonch-Bruyevich and Gorbunov, already familiar to us, but the show was prepared by someone "Acting Government Commissar for the Scientific Department of the People's Commissariat of Education, V. Ter-Oganezov." If we take into account that the decree on the cancellation of summer time introduced by the Provisional Government, we can say that the recent astronomer has worked in the specialty.
However, such a small performance did not embarrass Vartan Tigranovich at all; he was still gushing with ideas. And, I must give him his due - very radical. As a mathematician, he reasoned quite logically: who, for example, can know the shortcomings of the educational process at a university is better than the man who outlined lectures in an audience several months ago? As a result, legislative initiatives of the Scientific Department for Higher Education Reform came to light:
“Diplomas at the end of universities are canceled, they must be replaced by a special test commission, through which each student must pass; the teaching staff is replenished with a strict discussion of all candidates by specialists from all Russian universities; studying youth are granted the right to reclaim unwanted professors; the competition for admission to higher educational institutions must be completely abolished, because it allows the bourgeoisie to easily enter the university and makes it inaccessible to the proletariat; certificates of maturity are replaced by [...] one-year experience, which ascertains the performance of the listener.
But it’s not even the radical nature of the proposed reforms. The big problem was that Comrade Ter-Oganezov’s ideas knew no boundaries, and the idea in the proposed documents flew from one to the other with extraordinary ease. Sorry for the extensive quotation from his report, but otherwise just do not understand the whole grandeur of the plans of the young head of the department. I draw your attention that this is the original, and not cutting, the thoughts were so crowded that they ousted everything, including logical transitions:
“The upheaval that changed the class relationship inspires confidence that the proletariat will push new forces. Turning to the creation of new scientific institutions and the reform of old ones, it is necessary to change the range of tasks of the physical observatory that does not meet its purpose. The centralization and convening of a congress of representatives of meteorological institutions, which the Executive Committee will allocate, is necessary. The Chamber of Weights and Measures also does not meet the needs of the time; on her responsibility lies the control of measuring instruments. It is necessary to further coordinate the activities of all museums whose work has no general plan. To develop this plan, it is necessary to convene a congress. The Academy of Sciences, still the center of purely scientific disciplines, is beginning to unite institutions with technical character around it. In this spirit, her work should be further developed. As for new beginnings, the Institute of Radiology, in addition to its purely scientific value, is important for medicine; An x-ray bureau will be created in Moscow. His plan has already been developed. It will study the rays and take care of the organization of cabinets for treating the wounded. The Institute for the Study of Electric Waves will also be of practical importance. The Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs is interested in its creation. Institute for the Study of Best Air Traffic; the creation of the Commission for the study of the direction of the winds. In addition to a number of purely scientific tasks, the Institute of Physics and Technology will work to change the physics and technology instruments, for example, the thermometer. All remaining enterprises of a physico-technical nature should be used. In addition to creating new institutions, it is planned to organize a number of popular scientific lectures. The tasks of the Scientific Department also include concerns about the formulation of scientific cinematography, the attraction of scientific and artistic forces to this work; concerns about publishing books of a scientific nature in three categories. ”
Even Deputy People's Commissar Lunacharsky, the famous historian Pokrovsky, who broke out with a philippic style “do you use cocaine there, or what?”, Goggled his eyes from such an intimate fiction. Mikhail Nikolayevich said that the program proposed by the Scientific Department “is very broad and covers the tasks of other departments: for example, the training of scientists is a function of the Department of Higher Education, the publishing house is a function of the Publishing Department, etc. It is more expedient for the Research Department to focus its attention on scientific institutions in its own sense words that do not pursue any learning goals . " A member of the commission, director of the Moscow Observatory, P. K. Sternberg, in plain text called the Ter-Oganezov program "utopia"and advised him to take up his direct duties: to reform, for example, the Academy of Sciences. In general, the work of Ter-Oganezov was considered unsatisfactory, and to help yesterday's student it was recommended “to attract more scientific value”. Soon, the Scientific Department was headed by Professor D. N. Artemyev, the renowned “student of Academician Vernadsky” .
Further, my regular readers already know. The new and old chief unexpectedly became friends, Artemyev even called Ter-Oganezov to teach at the Mining Academy to his place, albeit beyond the use of astronomy miners, he taught students of geometry. Then they both received the most powerful dressing from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for excesses in reforming the Academy of Sciences, and their activities as leaders of Russian science came to an end. Artemyev was offended and fled abroad, while Ter-Oganezov stayed and tried for a long time to understand - why did he get kicked out, what did he do wrong?
The idea that he was elementaryly shallow for his position did not occur to him - when did people believe in such slander?
However, and kicked it is not up to the end. Officials in Russia, like those Indians - having given their ends, do not die for good. I don’t know how to try and what to do to get you thrown out completely in the cold. Usually, the punished colleague, at least a small position, but they will find it. Vartan Tigranovich, in particular, was transferred from Russian science to nature protection and environmental protection, and from August 1924 he was peacefully engaged in nature reserves. And there seems to have even brought some benefit to the country. And then they returned to science and higher education, however, not for the first, but for the third or fourth roles.
And Vartan Tigranovich was very sad from this. He suffered to a gnash of teeth, and still could not understand - where did he get pierced, why did the stars betray him, because of what he, in fact, repeated the path of his father, becoming a minor official? And from this insult, he wanted to howl at the moon.
And on the moon, on the moon,
On a blue boulder,
Lunar people are watching,
The eyes are not reduced,
Like over the moon, above the moon,
The blue ball, the earth globe,
Very beautifully rises
And sets.
In general, Vartan Tigranovich was determined to take revenge and return to power. And not just anywhere, but in his native field - astronomy. A dream cannot be thrown, a dream must be realized. He changed the dream - and for this fate punished him. Well, then he just needs to return to that fork and become a famous and influential astronomer. Some problem was that he had long and hopelessly lost his scientific qualification, but he did not care much about it. He has a plan that is easy to implement. It didn’t work out for a long time, but in 1930, Ter-Oganezov had a chance, but I’m saying that he was extremely lucky.
You, most likely, know the name of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Morozov. Today he is remembered for the most part as a chronobore, raised on the shield of Fomenko and Nosovsky, but in reality this person was a little about that, and the person, of course, was unique. These people can be treated differently, but to deny their presence of an adamantium core is meaningless. Today, these just do not. During his long life, Morozov replaced a lot of classes:
- the illegitimate son of the Mologsky landowner Peter Alekseevich Shchepochkin, bearing the surname of his mother, a peasant Anna Morozova, and patronymic "on the cross," like a curse
- excluded from a gymnasium
- a volunteer at Moscow University
- Raznichinets, who went "to the people", leading propaganda among the peasants of Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Voronezh and Kursk provinces
- emigrant to Switzerland, member of the First International
- on his return to Russia - arrested and convicted by the "193th process"
- after his release - Illegal, one of the leaders of "Earth and Will."
- a participant in the preparation of the assassination of Alexander II
- again an emigrant, a terrorist and a theorist of terrorism, the author of the book “Terrorist Struggle”, regarding terror as a permanent regulator of the political life of Russia
- Karl Marx’s friend who received several works from him for translation into Russian the Communist Manifesto
- a prisoner taken red-handed while illegally crossing the border of the Russian Empire
- s / c, sentenced to life imprisonment. The term served in the Alekseevsky Ravelin and Shlisselburg penal servitude prison. After 25 years of his release, he was released under an amnesty after the First Russian Revolution. He was imprisoned several times and was released. He spent a total of about 30 years in prison
- a scientist who, in conclusion, learned eleven languages and wrote 26 volumes of scientific works in chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, aviation, and political economy. Having finished with his sentences, he devoted himself entirely to science
- a mason, a member of the “Polar Star” lodge in the Great East of France
- a science fiction writer
- a poet
- the chairman of the Council of the Russian Society of World Science Fans (ROLM)
- Director of the Natural Science Institute. PF Lesgafta
- honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- 85-year-old cadet of sniper courses Osoaviahima
- one of the oldest participants in the Great Patriotic War, at 88 years old, personally taking part in hostilities on the Volkhov front
- a gentleman of two Orders of Lenin, the Order of Red Labor banner and medal "For the Defense of Leningrad"
We, however, in this story are interested only in one of his hypostases - the chairman of the Council of the Russian Society of World History Fans. And here - a small digression, without which it can not do. The situation with the professional associations of astronomers in the country was as follows. It was created long before the revolution, the Russian Astronomical Society, uniting professional astronomers. And there were three organizations that brought together amateur astronomers under their wing. This is the Nizhny Novgorod circle of lovers of physics and astronomy, the oldest in the country and a well-respected association that produced the Russian astronomical calendar. In Moscow, there was the Moscow Society of Astronomy Fans, one of the founders of which, by the way, were the Vasnetsov brothers-artists. And the largest of the amateur astronomical associations - in St. Petersburg. That same Russian Society of World History Fans.
It was on amateur astronomical associations that Ter-Oganezov made a bet, knowing full well that world-class scientists from the Russian Astronomical Society would not listen to him.
And he began with the Russian Society of World Science Fans, as astronomy used to be called. ROLM was a very interesting organization, created in 1908 by diversely educated Petersburg intellectuals. They really engaged in astronomy, but with a fair touch of mysticism, carried away, for example, astral mythology. No wonder that the ancient Egyptian image of the winged sun became the emblem of society.
Particularly interesting was the scientific work of Daniel Svyatsky, the editor-in-chief of the journal “Mirovedenie”, published by society. Back in 1915, on the advice of Academician Vernadsky, he wrote the book Astronomical Phenomena in Russian Chronicles with the application of the Canon of Russian Eclipses, computed by the young astronomer Vil'ev, where all data on solar and lunar eclipses in ancient Russia and pre-Petrine Russia from 1060 to 1715
Remember Academician Peter Lazarev, Chairman of the Scientific Commission at the Gorbunovsky Scientific and Technical Department of the Supreme Economic Council?
In his main specialty, he was a miner, one of the scientific pillars of the Moscow Mining Academy, who later played a key role in the discovery of the largest iron deposit on earth - the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly. But in mining, Lazarev did not close himself up, and even before the revolution he conducted research on the effect of electronic flows on human brain activity. These works allowed Svyatsky to do research that tried to scientifically substantiate the connection between sunspots and revolutionary events.
In general, I think it is clear what the members of the ROLM did. In addition, they were zealous Petersburg Fronders, equally opposition to any government. When the king-father, they had barely formed, they sent an invitation to stand at the head of the Morozov-Shlisselburg society, as they called him, who had just been released under an amnesty. Under the Soviet government, defiantly elected Countess Sofia Vladimirovna Panina, an honorary member, to protest her arrest in December 1917.
Sooner or later they had to run. They came across - sooner rather than later, therefore they got off relatively easily. In 1930, the diary of Vladimir Alekseevich Kazitsyn, the ROLM scientific secretary, somehow got into the hands of the OGPU and had a bad habit of recording who said what during traditional conversations over tea parties after meetings. And since in expressions to the authorities, Petersburg intellectuals traditionally did not hesitate, they took many. Most, however, were later released; Kazitsyn himself and those who love to study the effect of sunspots on the Svyatsky revolution suffered most seriously. Both went to build the White Sea Canal, were quickly transferred to civilian, worked by specialty - engineer and meteorologist, respectively. In 1933, already returned to Leningrad.
Ter-Oganezov had nothing to do with these events, but he took advantage of the situation one hundred percent. He ensured that the journal “Mirovedenie” (which is the second most important astronomical journal in the country), which temporarily remained unattended, was transferred to Moscow and became its chief editor.
Realizing that as long as he didn’t call anyone at all, Vartan Tigranovich really “snitched up” around Morozov, struggling to load his enormous prestige onto his thicket. And in general, he succeeded; even the almost anecdotal-servile protocol of the first meeting of the updated wording was preserved in the archive:
Present V.T.Ter-Oganezov (rep. Ed.), N.A. Morozov, V.I. Kozlov (secret. Ed.) ... 1. Listened to: The message of the Editor-in-Chief about the ideological direction of the journal ... In the debate N. Morozov noted his full agreement with the intended line of work. 2. They listened to the Secretary’s report on the financial situation and prospects of the journal ... In the debate, N.A. Morozov congratulated the Editors on the great achievements she had received ... The meeting began at 15h.40m .; ended at 16h.15m.
Ter-Oganezov’s plan was simple - the party’s military organ should have been made from the magazine. That is why almost in every issue articles by the editor-in-chief on dialectic materialism attached to astronomy began to appear, and Vartan Tigranovich himself declared himself "an astronomer-philosopher." However, in PR he also understood well, so he began not with a tediousness about the metaphysics of the natural sciences, but with a scandal.
On behalf of all the Soviet astronomers Ter-Oganezov wrote a letter to the Pope , in which he listed in detail all the insults caused by the church to astronomers for many centuries. I have not forgotten about Giordano Bruno, about Galileo, about Copernicus, about Tycho Brahe and about all the rest. And then he announced the Soviet astronomers their heirs, however, are in a better position:
“If sv. Clement VIII once sent the founders of our science to the fire, then you, Pope Pius XI, cannot send any of her followers to the fire, although our views are completely “heretical”. Now the papal church is fighting against the “shameful materialistic fallacies”, because directly attacking science in our age is a useless enterprise, and it is no secret to anyone now that science cannot be materialistic. ”
And in conclusion he put the question squarely:
“We would like to conclude with an answer from His Holiness: whether the church still considers Bruno, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and many other martyrs of science to be heretics and sinners, and if he doesn’t consider, then Clement VIII, Paul, has been subjected to public condemnation I, Ur6an VIII and other popes, who have committed so much evil, how much has it been committed by all the villains of the world? "
Surprisingly, he quickly received an answer, and — much more surprisingly — printed it no less quickly in his work at “Mirovodenii”. As reasonably notes in his article “Pay, repent, open secret archives” (from where these quotes are taken), Igor Petrov,“Perhaps Ter-Oganezov felt the legitimate pride of the troll, who had just been fed tasty. Or the fact that there was no excuse about J. Bruno at the Holy See played a role . ”
Having made a name in the highest astronomical circles for himself on the scandal, Ter-Oganezov did not fail to take advantage of this. Following the St. Petersburg group, the turn came and the Muscovites. In January 1931, the activities of the Moscow Amateur Astronomical Society (MOLA) were investigated by an eight-person commission consisting of representatives from the science sector of the People's Commissariat of Education, the Academy of Communists, the State Astrophysical Institute, Moscow State University students, the Trud factory and the Central Committee of the Militant Atheists Union. I think you would not be surprised if you find out that the People's Commissariat of Education was represented by V.T. Ter-Oganezov.
The commission found many shortcomings: as if - no one from the leadership of the society was a member of the Communist Party, the employees of the society were never interested in applying the dialectical-materialistic methodology in the field of astronomy and similar sins. As a result, V.T. Ter-Oganezov replaced the distinguished astronomer A. A. Mikhailov as chairman of the Moscow society and headed it for the next seven years.
In the same year, our hero took part in checking the activities of the State Astrophysical Institute (GAFI). As a result, the institute’s directors, VG Fesenkov, were removed, and S. V. Orlov was appointed to replace him. But Ter-Oganezov became deputy director. He also took the place of Kostitsyn in the editorial board of the Astronomical Journal, the country's main astronomical publication. Here is how our hero recalled this episode a few years later:
Ten years ago, the party and the Soviet government sent me to bring the Astrophysical Institute into a Christian view. I got there as in the camp of the enemies. The only person I could rely on was Yu. V. Filippov, but I spent most of the time alone. This institute received a salary of V. V. Stratonov, exiled in 1922, and V. A. Kostitsyn (defector). The leaders of the institute (V.G. Fesenkov and others) have been holding a grudge against me since then. I am proud that they peck me. I think I did my job right.
Interestingly, he looked at those times at the sky, at least sometimes?
And for those who can not sleep,
I'll tell you a secret
One surprising fact:
I count the stars,
And there are no bills for the stars!
And indeed it is!
Look through telescopes
And also open
Other worlds and edges.
But it is only necessary that the
good weather be
on planet
earth.
Hardly, I think, he had no time. In addition, by the end of the year, Vartan Tigranovich had more serious concerns. In 1931, the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR formed an organizational bureau headed by astronomer V. T. Ter-Oganezov to create a single astronomical society of the RSFSR. The idea was simple, as all ingenious - why do we need so many astronomical societies? From them only vanity and mess. All four societies should merge into one, which will unite all astronomers and surveyors of the republic. Soon the Declaration of the Organizing Bureau of the Astronomical and Geodesic Society of the RSFSR (AGOR) was published in the journal “Mirovedenie”. It called"... of all astronomers and geodesists to unite in a single Astronomical and Geodesic Society of the RSFSR . " However, already in 1932, the question arose of creating not an All-Russian, but an All-Union society.
On August 1, 1932, a meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was held, at which the Charter of the All-Union Astronomical and Geodesic Society (VAGO) was approved. That was the name of the existing organization today, one of the main creators of which was our hero.
After the VAGO was created on paper, the task of organizing it arose. This happened at the First All-Union Astronomy and Geodesic Congress - for the first time in history, almost all the country's astronomers gathered in one hall. The idea of convening a congress arose at the end of 1931 (even before the legal approval of the Charter of the VAGO), and soon after the approval of the Charter the organizing committee was organized to convene the congress at the head of ... Yes. With V.T. Ter-Oganezov. The congress was a great success, but Vakhtang Tigranovich wasn’t given the opportunity to head the All-Union organization - it’s ugly to put a man at the head of the academicians, in whose assets there are two quarter-old half-disciplinary articles. Therefore, the well-known Soviet astronomer, Professor A. A. Mikhailov became the first chairman of the All-Union Astronomical and Geodesic Society, and V. T. was elected Vice-Chairmen.
Ter-O
And if you consider that a serious scientist Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Mikhailov was not very interested in VAGO’s activities and was in fact driven by Ter-Oganezov, then it can be stated that my hero was again at the top. He was not only the leading member of all major astronomical organizations and the editor of the second most important astronomical journal in the country. Moreover, by 1936-37 he himself had appointed himself the leading conductor of the party line in astronomy.
Since 1936, Vartan Tigranovich participated in the work of several commissions sent by the Academy of Sciences to investigate the “unhealthy” situation at the Pulkovo Observatory. And he became the only member of these commissions who consistently insisted on tough measures against the staff of the observatory. He was not shy in expressions, in his article in “Mirovodedenie” with the saying title “For eradicating wrecking on the astronomical front to the end”, approximately in the following expressions:
The bodies of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs in the Soviet astronomical institutions discovered a gang of enemies of the people, which for a number of years has done its dark business. These enemies, among other things, tried to do everything to try to undermine the prestige of Soviet astronomy and prevent its successful movement. For example, you can stop at one of these pests. What was he like? This is a former SR, who pretended to be a supporter of the Soviet authorities, who apparently verbally tried to show his “reconciliation” with her, but who often could not stand it and bare his wolfish fangs.
More than 30 people were arrested in Pulkovo, many of them, including the director of the observatory Gerasimovich, who was exposed but not named for his name, were shot.
It is significant that in the same article, Ter-Oganezov not only condemned the repressed Pulkovo people, but also laid all those who tried to soften their fate:
“... it is interesting to note that it is still unknown what point of view the Academy of Sciences is relatively clear and unconditional the content of the findings of the above commission for the survey of the observatory. It is only known that a certain draft resolution on this issue, the permanent secretary of the Academy, N. P. Gorbunov, was submitted for editing to the chairman of the commission, VG Fesenkov, who personally, at his own risk and risk, considerably “softened” him, throwing out sharp formulations and political the charges. But in this politically diluted form, the resolution turned out to be a “missing letter”.
“The indispensable secretary” Gorbunov - let me remind you - this is the very former personal secretary of Lenin, under whose patronage he and Artemyev worked in the field of management of science in 1918. He was arrested a few months after the publication of the article, at the end of 1937, and died in prison. Academician Fesenkov, by his admission, was waiting for his arrest every day. But it did it - he got off from the post of the chairman of the Astronomical Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences and relieved of his duties as director of the State Astronomical Institute. Sternberg.
What can I say?
And all the sadness passes,
When you look at the sky -
Into the chimney or just out the window,
But, really, at this time
No rain or snow
Outside should not be,
Then among the countless
Treasure of the sky
There is a star for you,
But only it is necessary that the
Good weather
Be on planet Earth.
But what is interesting is that immediately after this triumph, this maximum tide of power, the Universe calmly and boringly settled with my hero. The number of “World Studies”, in which the article “For the eradication of wrecking on the astronomical front” was published, was the last in the history of the journal - it was merged with the magazine “Science and Life”.
The loss of the main editorial was not the last of Ter-Oganezov. The members of the Moscow branch of VAGO, which he led, first wrote a slander to the Central Committee, complaining that the elections had not been held for many years, and after the elections were called, they had voted on their seven-year-old chairman, choosing Mikhailov as the new head. Earlier, the GAFI, which it “led to the Christian view” and where he received the position of deputy director, was merged with two other institutions, and there was no place for him in the new structure.
The following year, in 1938, the CEC Committee on Academic and Scientific Institutions, where he worked, was liquidated, and VAGO, his main child, was transferred from the People's Commissariat of Education to the USSR Academy of Sciences, where Ter-Oganezov had no influence and where he was not loved . They were completely insolent there - they protested against awarding him the degree of the candidate of sciences and the professorial rank without protection, and not anywhere, but on the pages of Pravda. The professors eventually gave him one, but the scandal was very offensive. In the same year, his name disappeared from the list of the editorial board of the Astronomical Journal.
Power and power flowed through our fingers. He was just a petty devil, and evil luck all the time threw him on high chairs, which he had no chance to hold onto. And all that remained for him was just to bitterly bitch, congratulating Morozov on awarding the Order of the Red Banner of Labor:
At this moment I regret that thanks to the intrigues of our enemies who have not yet been punished, there is no “World Studies” that was so close to your heart .
However, the devil's luck did not leave him - he was not touched, he relatively calmly survived the thirties, however, having lost almost all his posts by the end of the decade, except in the VAGO created by him. He spent the war in Tashkent, tried the old director of Tashkent Observatory Shcheglov, but the president of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan Tashmuhamed Niyazovich Kary-Niyazov easily fought off the attack, insultingly clicking on the nose.
No one was afraid or respected him anymore. In 1955, the second congress of VAGO was held, where Ter-Oganezov was not elected to any position, having lost his place in the editorial office of the VAGO Bulletin. All he has left is teaching at the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute. Ordzhonikidze, formed after the division of the Moscow Mining Academy into six universities.
In 1962, at the age of 72, he died. His biographers like to emphasize that none of the many Soviet astronomical publications have published an obituary. This is true, but - in fairness - this applies only to astronomers. A well-felt obituary appeared on May 7, 1962 in the "Mine Scout" - a university low circulation of the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute, where our hero had been in the Department of Mathematics for more than three decades, from 1930 until his death.
Teaching students mathematics turned out to be more beneficial than astronomers to dialectics.
Grateful so for sure.
When you are lonely
And sad for some reason,
Or the hunt is something to understand,
Go and ask the
Gray Stargazer,
He is near - by hand lodge.
All questions in the world
He has the answers.
He read three thousand books,
And he learned the whole sky, He
measured all the planets
And let you look at them.
There at a high altitude,
Even scary to say where, The
stars hang,
Like oranges.
But between the stars, between the stars,
Dragging a tail, a magnificent tail,
Comets walk ,
It is important as peacocks,
And on the moon, on the moon,
A bear rides on an elephant, A
moon bear - blue eyes,
Not noticing
What we look at him
And to ourselves read aloud tales.
The essay uses poems by Yulia Kim, and the music that now sounds in your head is the young and brilliant Alexei Rybnikov.
Vartan Tigranovich was a minor demon. No, truth-truth - this phrase glorified by Fyodor Sologub described him ideally. But that was not the problem.
The problem was that he was a petty devil. Moreover, the curse hung on him is very rare - Vartan Tigranovich was cursed by luck. He was always lucky, and that was the main cause of all his problems. Therefore, it is best to start this essay like this:
Vartan Tigranovich Ter-Oganezov was a petty devil. Very lucky and therefore deeply unlucky petty demon.
All my non-positive heroes have some mystical problems with photos. This is his only image that I found. Figure L.N. Radlova.
He was born on October 10, 1890 in the city of Tiflis in the family of the collegiate registrar Tigran Vartanovich Ter-Oganezov. The collegiate registrar (also known as the “elistratie simple”) is - I will remind you - the fourteenth, the lowest rank of the famous “Table of Ranks”. He did not even give the rights to the personal nobility, only for honorary citizenship. The very rank of which Alexander “our everything” Alexander Pushkin very honestly wrote in the “Stationmaster”: “I am a martyr of the fourteenth class who was protected from his beatings by his rank, and that is not always the case.” The last remark is very significant, especially if we recall that one of the characters in the story “Laughter and Sorrow” by Nicholas “Lefty” Leskov calls collegiate registrars just as “Don't beat me into the snout.” In general, his dad was not the highest ranks.
Our hero's mother died early, leaving Vartan and his older sister Astghik orphans. But the boy also did not go to school, like his father - the collegiate registrar got married again, and soon our hero had two half-sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret or Zizi and Margo, as they all their life signed in letters.
In these times, of course, Vartan Tigranovich was not yet a minor demon. He was ordinary, rather, even a good boy. The boy, who is in peak with the surrounding small world, dreamed of a big one. But not about the big rank, but about the big one - in the global sense. I would even say eschatological. He often looked at the sky. And the sky in the south is a very special sky. There is neither a dumb father service, nor a stepmother, nor four children in the family who live on the collegiate registrar's penny salary ...
There are stars.
Neither rain nor snow,
Neither cloudy wind
At midnight cloudless hour,
Spreads the sky
Sparkling bowels
For vigilant and joyful eyes,
Treasures of the universe
Flicker, as if breathing,
Ringing little by little zenith,
And there are such people -
They hear perfectly,
Like a star with a star says:
-Hello!
-Hello!
-Shine?
- I shine.
-What time is it now?
- Twelfth approximately ...
There on Earth at this hour The
best seen of us
- But what about the children?
-Children? Sleep, probably ...
People who listen to how a star with a star says really exist, and while still a high school student, Ter-Oganezov became interested in astronomy. And he got carried away seriously - from the age of ten he corresponded with the chairman of the Russian Astronomical Society, one of the most famous astronomers of the empire, Sergey Pavlovich von Glasenap. And he was not the only one - for example, in February 1901 a fourth-grade pupil of the Fifth Kiev Gymnasium, Andrei Borysyak, who also corresponded with Glazenap, informed him about his observations of the new star in the constellation Perseus, which had reached a maximum of zero. Everything was confirmed in March at a meeting of the RAO S. P. Glazenap reported on the discovery of A. Borisyak, which was made several hours earlier than others, including foreign astronomers. Soon the high school student was elected a full member of the RAO,
High school student A. Borisyak
Ter-Oganezov did not discover anything, but he was already very lucky - fate gave him a chance to realize the dream. After graduating from high school, he did not go to work to help his family, but entered the university. Of course, at the Physics and Mathematics Department of St. Petersburg University, where, after many years of correspondence, he finally met Sergei Pavlovich and began to seriously study astronomy (later, however, he moved from Glazenap to Alexander Alexandrovich Ivanov). He studied well, at the age of 18, became a member of the Russian Astronomical Society, and in 1913-14 he published two articles on two-star orbits in the Proceedings of the Russian Astronomical Society. They were called “A note on the determination of the orbits of double stars” and “On the determination of the coefficient δ included in the equation for the visible ellipse of a double star”. Unfortunately,
Why all? But because human life is a permanent choice at the forks appearing before you, and some of the paths are painfully beckoning ... At one of these forks, a former good boy, now a promising young astronomer, chose a path that had very few chances to survive and good boy, and promising scientist.
Vartan graduated from the university at a very wrong time - in 1916, just a few months before the February Revolution. Crazy air of freedom doped then and much stronger people than my hero.
In general, it is surprising how much the algorithms of what is happening are the same at all times. I myself graduated from the university in the early 90s and remember very well those hollow corridors and half-empty audiences with teachers confused as kindergarteners abandoned by the teacher. And students who sell with burning eyes who jam, who preserves, who the air. And the recent honors pupils and Lenin scholars who left the university a year, or even a few months before graduation. Who needs these papers? There, outside the walls, the age-old foundations are crumbling, the state is falling, there are now such prospects shining, that the mind comes to mind and eyes mown to the bridge of the nose. What western and southern Slavs can now be, to whom your physical chemistry, high-molecular compounds and partial differential equations have surrendered?
It almost always ended the same way - in a couple of years potential dollar millionaires overslept appeared in the dean's office and, hiding their eyes, started talking about restoration and the ability to defend a diploma. However, a couple really lucky. Approximately as Vartan Ter-Oganezov.
This is how the great Russian astrophysicist Vsevolod Stratonov describes what is happening in his memoirs:
“Ter-Oganezov graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics in Petrograd and passed the exams well. Ivanov left him at the university scholarship in the department of astronomy. But after that he stopped practicing, declined to submit any report on his work as a fellow, and therefore was excluded from the list left at the university. In the fall of 1917, he came to confess to Ivanov, asking him to be restored to the position left at the university. Ivanov condescendingly went to meet him and promised, if Ter-Oganezov presented any work, to restore him to the position of a university scholar. He did not submit any work; but ... after that the Bolshevik coup took place, and Ter-Oganezov was at the head of all the scientists of the Russian institutions. ”
As we kindly tell the stickers in the messengers "This is a turn!". Yes, indeed, Vartan Tigranovich was indeed as if he had spontaneously originated in the depths of the People's Commissariat of Education. At least for all these years, no one could explain where he came from. He was not an old Bolshevik, just like a recent student of Fedorovsky - he joined the party of Ter-Oganezov only in 1918. He did not acquire high patrons, like Gorbunov, and did not even demonstrate a remarkable acumen or non-trivial organizational abilities. But, nevertheless, as early as November 1917, Ter-Oganezov entered the State Commission on Education, whose main goal was to form an education reform strategy and organize research, where he headed the so-called Scientific Department of the People's Commissariat of Education, a division created for this purpose.
There is only one option - it is not known what kind of fairy kissed his head in the cradle, but Ter-Oganezov was really impossible, incredibly lucky. It’s just not for nothing that lucky people in Russia always said: “This is the devil who enchants you”.
The chance to be at such an age at such a position falls out in life only once, and Vartan Tigranovich was smart enough to understand this. Therefore, stepping on the post impossible for yesterday's student, our hero showed some kind of utter activity. It would not be a big exaggeration to say that he really worked in the “mad typewriter” mode.
Exhaust, however, was small. So, out of all his legislative initiatives, only one lived to the end. The Decree on the Transition of the Hand of the Clock was issued on December 22, 1917, right between the decrees On the Delegation of the Delegation to Stockholm to Prepare for the Convocation of the Zimmerwald-Kienthal International Conference and the Decree on Universal Service for Clearing the Snow in Petrograd. It was signed by Lenin, Bonch-Bruyevich and Gorbunov, already familiar to us, but the show was prepared by someone "Acting Government Commissar for the Scientific Department of the People's Commissariat of Education, V. Ter-Oganezov." If we take into account that the decree on the cancellation of summer time introduced by the Provisional Government, we can say that the recent astronomer has worked in the specialty.
However, such a small performance did not embarrass Vartan Tigranovich at all; he was still gushing with ideas. And, I must give him his due - very radical. As a mathematician, he reasoned quite logically: who, for example, can know the shortcomings of the educational process at a university is better than the man who outlined lectures in an audience several months ago? As a result, legislative initiatives of the Scientific Department for Higher Education Reform came to light:
“Diplomas at the end of universities are canceled, they must be replaced by a special test commission, through which each student must pass; the teaching staff is replenished with a strict discussion of all candidates by specialists from all Russian universities; studying youth are granted the right to reclaim unwanted professors; the competition for admission to higher educational institutions must be completely abolished, because it allows the bourgeoisie to easily enter the university and makes it inaccessible to the proletariat; certificates of maturity are replaced by [...] one-year experience, which ascertains the performance of the listener.
But it’s not even the radical nature of the proposed reforms. The big problem was that Comrade Ter-Oganezov’s ideas knew no boundaries, and the idea in the proposed documents flew from one to the other with extraordinary ease. Sorry for the extensive quotation from his report, but otherwise just do not understand the whole grandeur of the plans of the young head of the department. I draw your attention that this is the original, and not cutting, the thoughts were so crowded that they ousted everything, including logical transitions:
“The upheaval that changed the class relationship inspires confidence that the proletariat will push new forces. Turning to the creation of new scientific institutions and the reform of old ones, it is necessary to change the range of tasks of the physical observatory that does not meet its purpose. The centralization and convening of a congress of representatives of meteorological institutions, which the Executive Committee will allocate, is necessary. The Chamber of Weights and Measures also does not meet the needs of the time; on her responsibility lies the control of measuring instruments. It is necessary to further coordinate the activities of all museums whose work has no general plan. To develop this plan, it is necessary to convene a congress. The Academy of Sciences, still the center of purely scientific disciplines, is beginning to unite institutions with technical character around it. In this spirit, her work should be further developed. As for new beginnings, the Institute of Radiology, in addition to its purely scientific value, is important for medicine; An x-ray bureau will be created in Moscow. His plan has already been developed. It will study the rays and take care of the organization of cabinets for treating the wounded. The Institute for the Study of Electric Waves will also be of practical importance. The Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs is interested in its creation. Institute for the Study of Best Air Traffic; the creation of the Commission for the study of the direction of the winds. In addition to a number of purely scientific tasks, the Institute of Physics and Technology will work to change the physics and technology instruments, for example, the thermometer. All remaining enterprises of a physico-technical nature should be used. In addition to creating new institutions, it is planned to organize a number of popular scientific lectures. The tasks of the Scientific Department also include concerns about the formulation of scientific cinematography, the attraction of scientific and artistic forces to this work; concerns about publishing books of a scientific nature in three categories. ”
Even Deputy People's Commissar Lunacharsky, the famous historian Pokrovsky, who broke out with a philippic style “do you use cocaine there, or what?”, Goggled his eyes from such an intimate fiction. Mikhail Nikolayevich said that the program proposed by the Scientific Department “is very broad and covers the tasks of other departments: for example, the training of scientists is a function of the Department of Higher Education, the publishing house is a function of the Publishing Department, etc. It is more expedient for the Research Department to focus its attention on scientific institutions in its own sense words that do not pursue any learning goals . " A member of the commission, director of the Moscow Observatory, P. K. Sternberg, in plain text called the Ter-Oganezov program "utopia"and advised him to take up his direct duties: to reform, for example, the Academy of Sciences. In general, the work of Ter-Oganezov was considered unsatisfactory, and to help yesterday's student it was recommended “to attract more scientific value”. Soon, the Scientific Department was headed by Professor D. N. Artemyev, the renowned “student of Academician Vernadsky” .
Further, my regular readers already know. The new and old chief unexpectedly became friends, Artemyev even called Ter-Oganezov to teach at the Mining Academy to his place, albeit beyond the use of astronomy miners, he taught students of geometry. Then they both received the most powerful dressing from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for excesses in reforming the Academy of Sciences, and their activities as leaders of Russian science came to an end. Artemyev was offended and fled abroad, while Ter-Oganezov stayed and tried for a long time to understand - why did he get kicked out, what did he do wrong?
The idea that he was elementaryly shallow for his position did not occur to him - when did people believe in such slander?
However, and kicked it is not up to the end. Officials in Russia, like those Indians - having given their ends, do not die for good. I don’t know how to try and what to do to get you thrown out completely in the cold. Usually, the punished colleague, at least a small position, but they will find it. Vartan Tigranovich, in particular, was transferred from Russian science to nature protection and environmental protection, and from August 1924 he was peacefully engaged in nature reserves. And there seems to have even brought some benefit to the country. And then they returned to science and higher education, however, not for the first, but for the third or fourth roles.
And Vartan Tigranovich was very sad from this. He suffered to a gnash of teeth, and still could not understand - where did he get pierced, why did the stars betray him, because of what he, in fact, repeated the path of his father, becoming a minor official? And from this insult, he wanted to howl at the moon.
And on the moon, on the moon,
On a blue boulder,
Lunar people are watching,
The eyes are not reduced,
Like over the moon, above the moon,
The blue ball, the earth globe,
Very beautifully rises
And sets.
In general, Vartan Tigranovich was determined to take revenge and return to power. And not just anywhere, but in his native field - astronomy. A dream cannot be thrown, a dream must be realized. He changed the dream - and for this fate punished him. Well, then he just needs to return to that fork and become a famous and influential astronomer. Some problem was that he had long and hopelessly lost his scientific qualification, but he did not care much about it. He has a plan that is easy to implement. It didn’t work out for a long time, but in 1930, Ter-Oganezov had a chance, but I’m saying that he was extremely lucky.
You, most likely, know the name of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Morozov. Today he is remembered for the most part as a chronobore, raised on the shield of Fomenko and Nosovsky, but in reality this person was a little about that, and the person, of course, was unique. These people can be treated differently, but to deny their presence of an adamantium core is meaningless. Today, these just do not. During his long life, Morozov replaced a lot of classes:
- the illegitimate son of the Mologsky landowner Peter Alekseevich Shchepochkin, bearing the surname of his mother, a peasant Anna Morozova, and patronymic "on the cross," like a curse
- excluded from a gymnasium
- a volunteer at Moscow University
- Raznichinets, who went "to the people", leading propaganda among the peasants of Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Voronezh and Kursk provinces
- emigrant to Switzerland, member of the First International
- on his return to Russia - arrested and convicted by the "193th process"
- after his release - Illegal, one of the leaders of "Earth and Will."
- a participant in the preparation of the assassination of Alexander II
- again an emigrant, a terrorist and a theorist of terrorism, the author of the book “Terrorist Struggle”, regarding terror as a permanent regulator of the political life of Russia
- Karl Marx’s friend who received several works from him for translation into Russian the Communist Manifesto
- a prisoner taken red-handed while illegally crossing the border of the Russian Empire
- s / c, sentenced to life imprisonment. The term served in the Alekseevsky Ravelin and Shlisselburg penal servitude prison. After 25 years of his release, he was released under an amnesty after the First Russian Revolution. He was imprisoned several times and was released. He spent a total of about 30 years in prison
- a scientist who, in conclusion, learned eleven languages and wrote 26 volumes of scientific works in chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, aviation, and political economy. Having finished with his sentences, he devoted himself entirely to science
- a mason, a member of the “Polar Star” lodge in the Great East of France
- a science fiction writer
- a poet
- the chairman of the Council of the Russian Society of World Science Fans (ROLM)
- Director of the Natural Science Institute. PF Lesgafta
- honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- 85-year-old cadet of sniper courses Osoaviahima
- one of the oldest participants in the Great Patriotic War, at 88 years old, personally taking part in hostilities on the Volkhov front
- a gentleman of two Orders of Lenin, the Order of Red Labor banner and medal "For the Defense of Leningrad"
We, however, in this story are interested only in one of his hypostases - the chairman of the Council of the Russian Society of World History Fans. And here - a small digression, without which it can not do. The situation with the professional associations of astronomers in the country was as follows. It was created long before the revolution, the Russian Astronomical Society, uniting professional astronomers. And there were three organizations that brought together amateur astronomers under their wing. This is the Nizhny Novgorod circle of lovers of physics and astronomy, the oldest in the country and a well-respected association that produced the Russian astronomical calendar. In Moscow, there was the Moscow Society of Astronomy Fans, one of the founders of which, by the way, were the Vasnetsov brothers-artists. And the largest of the amateur astronomical associations - in St. Petersburg. That same Russian Society of World History Fans.
It was on amateur astronomical associations that Ter-Oganezov made a bet, knowing full well that world-class scientists from the Russian Astronomical Society would not listen to him.
And he began with the Russian Society of World Science Fans, as astronomy used to be called. ROLM was a very interesting organization, created in 1908 by diversely educated Petersburg intellectuals. They really engaged in astronomy, but with a fair touch of mysticism, carried away, for example, astral mythology. No wonder that the ancient Egyptian image of the winged sun became the emblem of society.
Particularly interesting was the scientific work of Daniel Svyatsky, the editor-in-chief of the journal “Mirovedenie”, published by society. Back in 1915, on the advice of Academician Vernadsky, he wrote the book Astronomical Phenomena in Russian Chronicles with the application of the Canon of Russian Eclipses, computed by the young astronomer Vil'ev, where all data on solar and lunar eclipses in ancient Russia and pre-Petrine Russia from 1060 to 1715
Remember Academician Peter Lazarev, Chairman of the Scientific Commission at the Gorbunovsky Scientific and Technical Department of the Supreme Economic Council?
In his main specialty, he was a miner, one of the scientific pillars of the Moscow Mining Academy, who later played a key role in the discovery of the largest iron deposit on earth - the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly. But in mining, Lazarev did not close himself up, and even before the revolution he conducted research on the effect of electronic flows on human brain activity. These works allowed Svyatsky to do research that tried to scientifically substantiate the connection between sunspots and revolutionary events.
In general, I think it is clear what the members of the ROLM did. In addition, they were zealous Petersburg Fronders, equally opposition to any government. When the king-father, they had barely formed, they sent an invitation to stand at the head of the Morozov-Shlisselburg society, as they called him, who had just been released under an amnesty. Under the Soviet government, defiantly elected Countess Sofia Vladimirovna Panina, an honorary member, to protest her arrest in December 1917.
Sooner or later they had to run. They came across - sooner rather than later, therefore they got off relatively easily. In 1930, the diary of Vladimir Alekseevich Kazitsyn, the ROLM scientific secretary, somehow got into the hands of the OGPU and had a bad habit of recording who said what during traditional conversations over tea parties after meetings. And since in expressions to the authorities, Petersburg intellectuals traditionally did not hesitate, they took many. Most, however, were later released; Kazitsyn himself and those who love to study the effect of sunspots on the Svyatsky revolution suffered most seriously. Both went to build the White Sea Canal, were quickly transferred to civilian, worked by specialty - engineer and meteorologist, respectively. In 1933, already returned to Leningrad.
Ter-Oganezov had nothing to do with these events, but he took advantage of the situation one hundred percent. He ensured that the journal “Mirovedenie” (which is the second most important astronomical journal in the country), which temporarily remained unattended, was transferred to Moscow and became its chief editor.
Realizing that as long as he didn’t call anyone at all, Vartan Tigranovich really “snitched up” around Morozov, struggling to load his enormous prestige onto his thicket. And in general, he succeeded; even the almost anecdotal-servile protocol of the first meeting of the updated wording was preserved in the archive:
Present V.T.Ter-Oganezov (rep. Ed.), N.A. Morozov, V.I. Kozlov (secret. Ed.) ... 1. Listened to: The message of the Editor-in-Chief about the ideological direction of the journal ... In the debate N. Morozov noted his full agreement with the intended line of work. 2. They listened to the Secretary’s report on the financial situation and prospects of the journal ... In the debate, N.A. Morozov congratulated the Editors on the great achievements she had received ... The meeting began at 15h.40m .; ended at 16h.15m.
Ter-Oganezov’s plan was simple - the party’s military organ should have been made from the magazine. That is why almost in every issue articles by the editor-in-chief on dialectic materialism attached to astronomy began to appear, and Vartan Tigranovich himself declared himself "an astronomer-philosopher." However, in PR he also understood well, so he began not with a tediousness about the metaphysics of the natural sciences, but with a scandal.
On behalf of all the Soviet astronomers Ter-Oganezov wrote a letter to the Pope , in which he listed in detail all the insults caused by the church to astronomers for many centuries. I have not forgotten about Giordano Bruno, about Galileo, about Copernicus, about Tycho Brahe and about all the rest. And then he announced the Soviet astronomers their heirs, however, are in a better position:
“If sv. Clement VIII once sent the founders of our science to the fire, then you, Pope Pius XI, cannot send any of her followers to the fire, although our views are completely “heretical”. Now the papal church is fighting against the “shameful materialistic fallacies”, because directly attacking science in our age is a useless enterprise, and it is no secret to anyone now that science cannot be materialistic. ”
And in conclusion he put the question squarely:
“We would like to conclude with an answer from His Holiness: whether the church still considers Bruno, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and many other martyrs of science to be heretics and sinners, and if he doesn’t consider, then Clement VIII, Paul, has been subjected to public condemnation I, Ur6an VIII and other popes, who have committed so much evil, how much has it been committed by all the villains of the world? "
Surprisingly, he quickly received an answer, and — much more surprisingly — printed it no less quickly in his work at “Mirovodenii”. As reasonably notes in his article “Pay, repent, open secret archives” (from where these quotes are taken), Igor Petrov,“Perhaps Ter-Oganezov felt the legitimate pride of the troll, who had just been fed tasty. Or the fact that there was no excuse about J. Bruno at the Holy See played a role . ”
Having made a name in the highest astronomical circles for himself on the scandal, Ter-Oganezov did not fail to take advantage of this. Following the St. Petersburg group, the turn came and the Muscovites. In January 1931, the activities of the Moscow Amateur Astronomical Society (MOLA) were investigated by an eight-person commission consisting of representatives from the science sector of the People's Commissariat of Education, the Academy of Communists, the State Astrophysical Institute, Moscow State University students, the Trud factory and the Central Committee of the Militant Atheists Union. I think you would not be surprised if you find out that the People's Commissariat of Education was represented by V.T. Ter-Oganezov.
The commission found many shortcomings: as if - no one from the leadership of the society was a member of the Communist Party, the employees of the society were never interested in applying the dialectical-materialistic methodology in the field of astronomy and similar sins. As a result, V.T. Ter-Oganezov replaced the distinguished astronomer A. A. Mikhailov as chairman of the Moscow society and headed it for the next seven years.
In the same year, our hero took part in checking the activities of the State Astrophysical Institute (GAFI). As a result, the institute’s directors, VG Fesenkov, were removed, and S. V. Orlov was appointed to replace him. But Ter-Oganezov became deputy director. He also took the place of Kostitsyn in the editorial board of the Astronomical Journal, the country's main astronomical publication. Here is how our hero recalled this episode a few years later:
Ten years ago, the party and the Soviet government sent me to bring the Astrophysical Institute into a Christian view. I got there as in the camp of the enemies. The only person I could rely on was Yu. V. Filippov, but I spent most of the time alone. This institute received a salary of V. V. Stratonov, exiled in 1922, and V. A. Kostitsyn (defector). The leaders of the institute (V.G. Fesenkov and others) have been holding a grudge against me since then. I am proud that they peck me. I think I did my job right.
Interestingly, he looked at those times at the sky, at least sometimes?
And for those who can not sleep,
I'll tell you a secret
One surprising fact:
I count the stars,
And there are no bills for the stars!
And indeed it is!
Look through telescopes
And also open
Other worlds and edges.
But it is only necessary that the
good weather be
on planet
earth.
Hardly, I think, he had no time. In addition, by the end of the year, Vartan Tigranovich had more serious concerns. In 1931, the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR formed an organizational bureau headed by astronomer V. T. Ter-Oganezov to create a single astronomical society of the RSFSR. The idea was simple, as all ingenious - why do we need so many astronomical societies? From them only vanity and mess. All four societies should merge into one, which will unite all astronomers and surveyors of the republic. Soon the Declaration of the Organizing Bureau of the Astronomical and Geodesic Society of the RSFSR (AGOR) was published in the journal “Mirovedenie”. It called"... of all astronomers and geodesists to unite in a single Astronomical and Geodesic Society of the RSFSR . " However, already in 1932, the question arose of creating not an All-Russian, but an All-Union society.
On August 1, 1932, a meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was held, at which the Charter of the All-Union Astronomical and Geodesic Society (VAGO) was approved. That was the name of the existing organization today, one of the main creators of which was our hero.
After the VAGO was created on paper, the task of organizing it arose. This happened at the First All-Union Astronomy and Geodesic Congress - for the first time in history, almost all the country's astronomers gathered in one hall. The idea of convening a congress arose at the end of 1931 (even before the legal approval of the Charter of the VAGO), and soon after the approval of the Charter the organizing committee was organized to convene the congress at the head of ... Yes. With V.T. Ter-Oganezov. The congress was a great success, but Vakhtang Tigranovich wasn’t given the opportunity to head the All-Union organization - it’s ugly to put a man at the head of the academicians, in whose assets there are two quarter-old half-disciplinary articles. Therefore, the well-known Soviet astronomer, Professor A. A. Mikhailov became the first chairman of the All-Union Astronomical and Geodesic Society, and V. T. was elected Vice-Chairmen.
Ter-O And if you consider that a serious scientist Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Mikhailov was not very interested in VAGO’s activities and was in fact driven by Ter-Oganezov, then it can be stated that my hero was again at the top. He was not only the leading member of all major astronomical organizations and the editor of the second most important astronomical journal in the country. Moreover, by 1936-37 he himself had appointed himself the leading conductor of the party line in astronomy.
Since 1936, Vartan Tigranovich participated in the work of several commissions sent by the Academy of Sciences to investigate the “unhealthy” situation at the Pulkovo Observatory. And he became the only member of these commissions who consistently insisted on tough measures against the staff of the observatory. He was not shy in expressions, in his article in “Mirovodedenie” with the saying title “For eradicating wrecking on the astronomical front to the end”, approximately in the following expressions:
The bodies of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs in the Soviet astronomical institutions discovered a gang of enemies of the people, which for a number of years has done its dark business. These enemies, among other things, tried to do everything to try to undermine the prestige of Soviet astronomy and prevent its successful movement. For example, you can stop at one of these pests. What was he like? This is a former SR, who pretended to be a supporter of the Soviet authorities, who apparently verbally tried to show his “reconciliation” with her, but who often could not stand it and bare his wolfish fangs.
More than 30 people were arrested in Pulkovo, many of them, including the director of the observatory Gerasimovich, who was exposed but not named for his name, were shot.
It is significant that in the same article, Ter-Oganezov not only condemned the repressed Pulkovo people, but also laid all those who tried to soften their fate:
“... it is interesting to note that it is still unknown what point of view the Academy of Sciences is relatively clear and unconditional the content of the findings of the above commission for the survey of the observatory. It is only known that a certain draft resolution on this issue, the permanent secretary of the Academy, N. P. Gorbunov, was submitted for editing to the chairman of the commission, VG Fesenkov, who personally, at his own risk and risk, considerably “softened” him, throwing out sharp formulations and political the charges. But in this politically diluted form, the resolution turned out to be a “missing letter”.
“The indispensable secretary” Gorbunov - let me remind you - this is the very former personal secretary of Lenin, under whose patronage he and Artemyev worked in the field of management of science in 1918. He was arrested a few months after the publication of the article, at the end of 1937, and died in prison. Academician Fesenkov, by his admission, was waiting for his arrest every day. But it did it - he got off from the post of the chairman of the Astronomical Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences and relieved of his duties as director of the State Astronomical Institute. Sternberg.
What can I say?
And all the sadness passes,
When you look at the sky -
Into the chimney or just out the window,
But, really, at this time
No rain or snow
Outside should not be,
Then among the countless
Treasure of the sky
There is a star for you,
But only it is necessary that the
Good weather
Be on planet Earth.
But what is interesting is that immediately after this triumph, this maximum tide of power, the Universe calmly and boringly settled with my hero. The number of “World Studies”, in which the article “For the eradication of wrecking on the astronomical front” was published, was the last in the history of the journal - it was merged with the magazine “Science and Life”.
The loss of the main editorial was not the last of Ter-Oganezov. The members of the Moscow branch of VAGO, which he led, first wrote a slander to the Central Committee, complaining that the elections had not been held for many years, and after the elections were called, they had voted on their seven-year-old chairman, choosing Mikhailov as the new head. Earlier, the GAFI, which it “led to the Christian view” and where he received the position of deputy director, was merged with two other institutions, and there was no place for him in the new structure.
The following year, in 1938, the CEC Committee on Academic and Scientific Institutions, where he worked, was liquidated, and VAGO, his main child, was transferred from the People's Commissariat of Education to the USSR Academy of Sciences, where Ter-Oganezov had no influence and where he was not loved . They were completely insolent there - they protested against awarding him the degree of the candidate of sciences and the professorial rank without protection, and not anywhere, but on the pages of Pravda. The professors eventually gave him one, but the scandal was very offensive. In the same year, his name disappeared from the list of the editorial board of the Astronomical Journal.
Power and power flowed through our fingers. He was just a petty devil, and evil luck all the time threw him on high chairs, which he had no chance to hold onto. And all that remained for him was just to bitterly bitch, congratulating Morozov on awarding the Order of the Red Banner of Labor:
At this moment I regret that thanks to the intrigues of our enemies who have not yet been punished, there is no “World Studies” that was so close to your heart .
However, the devil's luck did not leave him - he was not touched, he relatively calmly survived the thirties, however, having lost almost all his posts by the end of the decade, except in the VAGO created by him. He spent the war in Tashkent, tried the old director of Tashkent Observatory Shcheglov, but the president of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan Tashmuhamed Niyazovich Kary-Niyazov easily fought off the attack, insultingly clicking on the nose.
No one was afraid or respected him anymore. In 1955, the second congress of VAGO was held, where Ter-Oganezov was not elected to any position, having lost his place in the editorial office of the VAGO Bulletin. All he has left is teaching at the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute. Ordzhonikidze, formed after the division of the Moscow Mining Academy into six universities.
In 1962, at the age of 72, he died. His biographers like to emphasize that none of the many Soviet astronomical publications have published an obituary. This is true, but - in fairness - this applies only to astronomers. A well-felt obituary appeared on May 7, 1962 in the "Mine Scout" - a university low circulation of the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute, where our hero had been in the Department of Mathematics for more than three decades, from 1930 until his death.
Teaching students mathematics turned out to be more beneficial than astronomers to dialectics.
Grateful so for sure.
When you are lonely
And sad for some reason,
Or the hunt is something to understand,
Go and ask the
Gray Stargazer,
He is near - by hand lodge.
All questions in the world
He has the answers.
He read three thousand books,
And he learned the whole sky, He
measured all the planets
And let you look at them.
There at a high altitude,
Even scary to say where, The
stars hang,
Like oranges.
But between the stars, between the stars,
Dragging a tail, a magnificent tail,
Comets walk ,
It is important as peacocks,
And on the moon, on the moon,
A bear rides on an elephant, A
moon bear - blue eyes,
Not noticing
What we look at him
And to ourselves read aloud tales.
The essay uses poems by Yulia Kim, and the music that now sounds in your head is the young and brilliant Alexei Rybnikov.
