A NATIVE RUSSIAN NUGGET

There have been several polymaths of genius in history, applying themselves to numerous and diverse areas of human activity and bringing their genius to all of them, as though their talents were unlimited in specifics, and were only a matter of application. Among this super-prodigious group stands an amazing Russian fountain of talents-galore Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov. Perhaps, the greatest of his talents was an insatiable drive for learning, in which admirable and stupendous quality he was undeniably second to none throughout all ages and nations.

Soviet mini-biographies used to cite his class origin as “peasant,” and many biographies still do, but such a characterization is rather misleading. He was a “pomor,” born on the edges of the Northern Seas, and all his family for generations had been in the rough-- and should I say rough-and-tumble?-- seafaring business. No offence to the peasants, a pomor is something else.

He had been brought up to be a laborer of the sea, and would retain certain qualities of that trade, including an incredible stubbornness and abrasiveness, bordering on rudeness, in his later life. But unlike all the people around him, he had far greater aspirations, and his thirst and unbounded capacity for learning would sooner or later come in conflict with his surroundings, and in a most radical way, at that.

By the age of fourteen, he was already well-literate and educated in the basics of math and science, thanks to a local church scribe, and to reading the best books available in the Russian language at the time, on these subjects. (There were not too many of them, though…) At the age of nineteen, having learned all that could possibly be learned there, he literally walked away from home, joining a caravan of fish merchants going to the great city of Moscow, which was the next stepping stone of his own ambition, reaching it in three weeks of an exerting Winterreise. He did not know a soul in the city, of course, but his incredible self-reliance and self-confidence buoyed him through all the difficulties that had to be expected from such a challenging undertaking. The farther he progressed, the more he thrived on his radically new experiences, as though he were born for them: to experience them, and then quickly to move on, to newer and more challenging ones.

Not at all embarrassed to be by far the oldest student in each class that he would subsequently be taking, his prodigious talents and quick learning skills were immediately and favorably noticed, and he moved on from Moscow’s Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy (1731-1735) to St. Petersburg’s Academic University (1736), from which he was sent, in the same year, to Germany, for further study (1736-1740). He returned to St. Petersburg in 1741 to great honors, as Professor of Chemistry and Physics--- the two disciplines which he would be the first person in history to tie in together, into one, that is, into physical chemistry. In 1755 he was the power behind the establishment of Moscow University, subsequently bearing his name. Having been elected honorary member of several foreign academies, he was now receiving so much recognition from Russia’s royalty and the Court, that his many enemies were literally trembling for fear that their animosity toward him might cost them the Court’s favor. Shortly before his death, in 1765, he was visited by the Empress Catherine the Great, who treated him, deservedly, as Russia’s foremost national treasure.

Overall, Lomonosov’s legacy has been incredibly large. He was Russia’s first world-renowned natural scientist and the world’s very first physical chemist, whose philosophy of physical chemistry happened to be virtually the same as it remains today. By the same token, his molecular-kinetic theory of heat was a precursor of the modern theory of the structure of matter and of the basic principles of thermodynamics. He is also unequivocally acknowledged as the father of the science of glass, to which effect the great Euler would give him an exuberant credit.

He was also a great astronomer (who discovered the atmosphere of Venus, among other things), an inventor of several optical devices and of other scientific instruments, a geographer, a mineralogist, a metallurgist, a geologist, an artist and mosaicist, author of several famous works of mosaic art, a historian, a philologist, as well as a writer and a poet who laid the foundation of the modern Russian literary language. As a poet, he is considered, with Derzhavin, one of the two greatest Russian poets before Pushkin. He was also a champion of Russian education, science, and economic progress.

This is what Pushkin says about him:

“Combining an uncommon willpower with an uncommon power of comprehension, Lomonosov embraced all branches of arts and sciences. A thirst for science was the greatest passion of this soul overflowing with passions. Historian, rhetorician, mechanic, chemist, mineralogist, artist, and versificator, he experienced all and penetrated all; he is the first to go in depth into the history of fatherland, establishes the rules of its civil language, provides the rules and examples of classical rhetoric, with the hapless Richmann (German-born Russian physicist, close friend and colleague of Lomonosov, Georg Wilhelm Richman [1711-1753] was killed while conducting an experiment with electricity… what a beautiful death! Lomonosov then went out of his way, cashing in on the royal favor to arrange a decent lifelong pension for the family of his late friend and colleague…) presages the discovery of (Benjamin) Franklin, establishes a factory and builds his own machines, gifts artistic mosaic works, and, finally, reveals to us the true sources of our poetic language.”

As a final curiosity, we must not forget to mention that none other than Lomonosov was the earliest developer of the helicopter principle, which he, however, never intended for “manned” flights, but only for launching certain meteorological instruments sufficiently high into the air to facilitate the conducting of various scientific experiments he had in mind. Still, the great Russian-born “father of the helicopter” Igor Sikorsky never failed to acknowledge his indebtedness to the genius of Lomonosov, which, most regrettably, very few people today would even know about, and still fewer would care about, as History herself has become a hopelessly old-fashioned fossil of a lady.

But all of us belonging to the diminishing breed of those who still know and still care, must do our duty to keep such memories alive.