Mikhail Lomonosov:the great Russian Northerner on the Dnipro’s Banks

Scientific, especially historical, truths leave a clear enough imprint on human minds only if they acquire a specific meaning, real-life flesh and blood. Otherwise, the process of universal understanding will be extremely difficult and be reduced to mechanically learning the dead and counterproductive schemes that man’s own inner self rejects.

One of such indisputable truths, still in bad need of revival, is the great influence of Ukrainian culture in general and education system in particular on the spiritual, social and political transformations in the emerging Russian Empire of the first half of the eighteenth century (one might consider translating the monograph by David Saunders on this topic — Ed.). It is impossible to find a brighter and more convincing illustration of this influence than the destiny of Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765), a world-class and universal scientist, enlightener, poet, public figure, an individual who not only raised Russian science to unheard-of heights by founding Russia’s first university in 1755 but was himself, to quote Aleksandr Pushkin, Russia’s first university.

Undoubtedly, Lomonosov’s towering figure is the legitimate pride of the Russian people. But does everybody know what Mikhail Lomonosov owes to the “bookish culture” and the “learned word” whose light (which reached the Moskva River’s banks as early as the 1670s and, later, the Neva’s banks) emanated from Kyiv, from the treasury of knowledge built up for centuries on end by our Pechersk Lavra monks and European-educated instructors at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy? It would be a good idea to recall some facts in this connection — in order to be fair and debunk the myth of an “undivided flow of Russian culture” into which Moscow traditionally included both Lomonosov’s heritage and the works of those cultural luminaries whom he relied on.

It is known that Mikhailo (as he was known at the time) Lomonosov was the eldest son in the family of Vasily Lomonosov, a Northern Russian seaman, a person of exceptional physical strength, courage, and vital energy. As Mikhail Lomonosov reminisced later, his father, Arkhangelsk region’s best fisherman, “earned all his property by sweat and blood.” He was also — an important detail — a literate person who had always held books and learning in high esteem. No wonder that the teenaged Mikhailo learned to read quite fast and felt the great and inimitable “delights of knowledge” which eventually made a genius out of him.

But let us slightly alter the question: what specific school did the young Lomonosov attend and what specific books did he read? This reveals some very interesting facts. In 1723 or 1724 the future great scientist enrolled in the Kholmogory Grammar School founded by our fellow countryman Varnava Volostovsky, Bishop of Kholmogory and Vazha, a Kyiv-Mohyla Academy alumnus. Lomonosov studied basic Old Church Slavonic, Greek, and Latin at that school. It will be also noted that another Mohyla alumnus, Lavrenty Volokh, was also one of the Kholmogory school’s most respected teachers.

Moreover, according to Lomonosov himself and his first official biography published in 1784, the first book that whetted in him an irresistible desire to devote himself to serving science and the people was Slavonic Grammar by the famous Ukrainian scholar and enlightener Melety Smotrytsky (1575-1633), one of the first Mohyla rectors. It is also noteworthy that mature Lomonosov called this book, as well as Leonty Magnitsky’s Arithmetic, in no other terms than “the gate of my learning.”

Another opus, A Rhymed Psalter by Simeon Polotsky (also a Mohyla Academy alumnus), also struck a lifelong chord with the young student. It can be stated quite confidently that Polotsky’s words “Do not listen to malicious ignoramuses in darkness. Blessed be the reader who, instead of catching words, seeks out intelligence” became the lifelong motto of a great enlightener and Russian scientific luminary, which instilled in him “a quick response to all impressions of the day,” always Lomonosov’s most characteristic trait.

Did the modest, bashful, yet powerful in spirit and body, young northern fisherman ever think that fate would have him see the Kyiv- Mohyla Academy, a place on the Dnipro’s steep banks, where prominent rhetoricians and philosophers, theologians and historians generously shared their wisdom with students? Did the young Mikhailo, who kept coaxing his old neighbor Khristofor Dudin, the owner of a small but good (by Kholmogory standards) library, into lending him Smotrytsky’s book, ever think that he himself would go to the famous Mohyla Academy ten years later? Yet, this is exactly what happened.

A semi-legendary (but indisputably proven by historians) flight of the 19-year-old Lomonosov to Moscow on a caravan that carried fish to Moscow, and the ensuing studies at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy (School of the Holy Icon and Salvation), then Moscow’s most prestigious educational institution, were milestones on the gifted youth’s way that eventually brought him to Kyiv. It will be noted that even the teaching process at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy was strictly patterned after that of the Mohyla Academy, so the latter may be rightly called the elder sister of the former. Like Mohyla, it had eight grades: four junior ones that taught reading and writing in Old Church Slavonic and Latin, basic arithmetic, history, and geography; two intermediate ones that taught basic rhetoric and rhyming, mostly in Latin; and two upper ones, where students did an advanced course of philosophy and theology.

This is why, when Lomonosov arrived in Kyiv to seek advanced knowledge supposedly in October 1734 (or a bit earlier), he found many familiar things at Mohyla. Some information says Moscow authorities were reluctant to let the 23-year-old student go because they were irked that he had allegedly concealed his ignoble origin when he came to Moscow in December 1730. But at this moment Feofan Prokopovych, our illustrious compatriot, although no longer as influential as in the 1720s under Peter I but still very respected and resolute, intervened and said to the young man, “Don’t be afraid of anything. Even if they declare you impostor under the peal of a big Moscow church bell, I will be ready to protect you.” Thus it is no accident that even Lomonosov’s first biographies noted that Prokopovych “did the Fatherland a great favor — he bestowed Lomonosov on Russia.”

What did the young scientist do in our capital? To our great regret, there is very little precise information on this: it is not even known for sure how long he stayed in Kyiv (one version says from October 1734 through February 1735, another says through July of the same year). Taking into account that even in the 1730s the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was still deservedly acclaimed as Eastern Europe’s best cultural center, we can surmise that Lomonosov had extensive studies. In all probability he attended courses (or at least heard some lectures) in philosophy, basic rhetoric, logic, and higher mathematics, for these subjects were the academy’s forte at the time. On the other hand, there are at our possession several dozens of Mohyla library books marked with Lomonosov’s very detailed notes (a Petersburg-based Doctor of Philology G.N. Moiseyev claims there are over forty of them). Lomonosov would crouch all day long over manuscripts from the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries, study the 1633 Paterik of Pechersk, the works of Metropolitan Dmytro Tuptalo of Rostov, and heaps of other books on our history... Lomonosov brilliantly applied the knowledge acquired in Kyiv to Ancient Russian History, the remarks on Miller’s and Schletzer’s ancient history books, A Brief Russian Chronicle and Genealogy (1760), and many other historical opuses.

One more thing: his inquisitive mind could not leave unattended the unique architecture of Kyiv, such as Kyiv Pechersk Lavra’s Assumption Cathedral, St. Sophia’s Cathedral, and St. Michael’s Gold-Domed Monastery. Later, Lomonosov used the world-famous and mysterious “Kyivan colored glass” to create such mosaic pictures as Peter I: A Portrait and The Divine Savior.

Lomonosov left Kyiv in 1735 to continue his ascent to the European glory he won with difficulty in Germany and Petersburg. Yet, the months he spent in Ukraine were by no means fruitless. They made the great scientist more determined “to cast a clear glance over the essence of all things in order to forestall any kind of contradictions.”