Vasily Vasilievich Bolotov

(With the attachment of two portraits: You. Vas. and his mother and two facsimiles) The conditions and environment under which the mind and character, and in general the moral character of a person who later acquired outstanding fame in the field of science were formed, undoubtedly have deep public interest and significance. The writer of these lines, who had the good fortune of being a comrade of Vasily Vasilyevich Bolotov and enjoying his personal favor, considered it his duty to collect and systematize everything that he knew from the facts of his life, both on the basis of his personal memories and impressions, and on the basis of information from other persons who knew the deceased closely (his fellow countrymen, comrades and friends). The author does not set out to evaluate the scientific works of the deceased professor, nor to indicate the discoveries he made in the field of his specialty, because this is work that, in its vastness and specialty, requires appropriate knowledge, and most importantly, a sufficient amount of time for its implementation (in this regard, the author will limit himself only to what is said by his fellow professors); his task is much more modest and narrower: his attention will be concentrated mainly on the facts of his home and school life in its various periods, and on the conditions that contributed to the formation of this exceptional mind and character. Aware of all the difficulties and responsibility of the task taken upon himself, the author made every effort to ensure that all reported facts were accurate, verified, came from the most reliable sources, and that they were all alien to any extraneous coloring caused by the subjective mood of the person conveying them. To achieve the latter goal, the author tried, wherever possible, to convey them in Vasily Vasilyevich’s own words (based on his letters to his mother and friends). How far he succeeded in all this is, of course, not for him to judge. His task in this regard, however, was greatly facilitated by the fact that the personality of Vasily Vasilyevich is such a rare integral and harmonious combination of outstanding mental and moral qualities that his biographer does not have to hold back anything at all (according to the anti-historical rule: de mortuis aut bene, aut nihil), or reinterpret, giving facts or events a different color than they actually had; on the contrary, one can say absolutely everything about Vasily Vasilyevich, without fear of casting a shadow either on himself or on other persons who came into contact with him. He was such a rare person in his words and deeds and in his entire life of truth, righteousness and goodness that in relation to him it is quite possible for a historian to apply another rule: on ne doit aux morts que la verite.. In conclusion, the author considers it his moral duty to express his deep gratitude to all persons who assisted him in the collection of biographical facts and their verification, especially to the friends of the deceased. "Ut enim quisque sibi plurimum confidit et ut quisque maxime virtute et sapientia sic minutus est, ut nullo egeat, suaque omnia in se ipso posita judicet, ita in amicitiis colendis "Admiratione quadam virtutis et sapientiae On April 5, 1900, at 7 o'clock in the evening, after a short illness, one of the great representatives of church-historical and theological knowledge, professor of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Vasily Vasilyevich Bolotov, died quietly in St. Petersburg, in the arms of his friends. The personality of the deceased can be characterized in a few words: he was a powerful, richly gifted nature, in which colossal multifaceted learning, combined with the greatest purity of his heart, “alien to any vanity in relation to himself and any partiality in relation to others,” and with endless devotion to science and his duty, together formed that exceptional personality who, in the words of the rector St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Bishop Boris, (in his funeral speech), represents “a great rarity not only here in Russia, but also in the West.” I. Vasily Vasilyevich’s parents, his childhood and upbringing Vasily Vasilyevich was the son of the sexton of the Ostashkov Trinity Cathedral, Vasily Timofeevich Bolotov. Among the distinctive features of Father Vasily Vasilyevich indicate that he was a great lover of reading the patristic works and an expert on them. His farm was small, and it, together with the insignificant church income, was barely enough to support his family. In the 45th year of his life, already a widower, he married again Maria Ivanovna Vishnyakova, originally from the village of Kravotyni, Ostashkovsky district, the daughter of a priest. But he did not live long with his second wife: in November 1853, he drowned in Lake Seliger, setting out on thin autumn ice to drive his domestic geese. Marya Ivanovna lived with her husband for only a few months. After his death, she hurried to return to Kravotyn, to her mother, also a widow, and here, 1½ months after her husband’s death, on December 31, 1853, she gave birth to a son, who was named Vasily at baptism. Poverty, inherent since ancient times in our spiritual environment, greeted Vasily Vasilyevich from the very first days of his life. Marya Ivanovna had no means of living. She had to divide her husband’s property into three parts with the children from his first marriage, and Vasily Vasilyevich’s share went to only 40 rubles, which were deposited in the bank, but which, despite the diligent requests of the mother, were not given to her to help even at a time when Vasily Vasilyevich was already studying at the Seminary, suffering significant need. She supported him solely by her labors, sewing dresses for peasants and making prosphora for the church in the village of Kravotyni. Marya Ivanovna was a remarkably rare woman: she herself learned to read and write in childhood, which was very rare in those days; She herself introduced her “son”, or “Vasilyushka” - as she usually called him at home - to basic literacy. Marya Ivanovna herself constantly wrote letters to Vasily Vasilyevich, in ordinary, rather beautiful handwriting, and had the habit of making copies of those that seemed to her the most important, in case the original ones were lost. At times she gave them to others close to her to read. Only a two-year dying illness deprived her of this activity and pleasure, and at that time, at the request of Vasily Vasilyevich, the local priest Nikanor Mikhailovich Verzin became an intermediary between mother and son; he wrote letters to Vasily Vasilyevich on behalf of his mother and read his letters to her. Marya Ivanovna devoted her holiday time, free from daytime work, after the service, to reading books; She loved to listen and what others read and from what she read, almost everything was preserved in her memory. She read the Book of Hours, the Psalter and the Gospel and knew by heart many passages from the books mentioned; knew the saints well. “When I was still a teacher at the zemstvo school in the village of Peskakh, 6 versts from Kravotyn,” says Mikhail Aleksandrovich Ryazantsev 1, I often visited her, and, sitting at the table and holding a month book in my hands, more than once examined her out of curiosity: “Marya Ivanovna, what saints does St. celebrate?” church on such and such a date and month?” And Marya Ivanovna answered all such questions correctly, listing the saints in detail in the order in which their names were printed in the Synodal Monthly Book. The extraordinary memory of Vasily Vasilyevich’s mother is confirmed by the testimony of another person: the aforementioned priest Nikanor Mikhailovich Verzin, who says that Vasily Vasilyevich’s mother “always conveyed everything she heard at different times with literal accuracy. She couldn't forget anything." And this trait, as we will see later, was completely inherited by Vasily Vasilyevich, who also never forgot anything that came into his consciousness at least once... To satisfy his thirst for reading, Vasily Vasilyevich, when he became a professor, constantly brought his mother various books, such as, for example, “Lives of the Saints” with drawings by Solntsev, ed. Tuzov, in 2 volumes, “Trinity Leaves” and “Soulful Reading” for several years. She read all this with great interest. When, in her old age, her vision began to change, and reading, even with the help of glasses, became difficult, she listened with pleasure and gratitude to others reading books, magazines and newspapers. Marya Ivanovna, having buried her mother, was left alone with her son and lived alone until her death. During the entire time Vasily Vasilyevich was studying, Marya Ivanovna, in addition to the penny income from sewing various things for peasant women, providing prosphora, for which she received no more than 10 rubles. per year and another 5 rubles. benefits from diocesan guardianship, and had no other income. With these funds she supported her son and still found the opportunity to give each of the poor brethren a penny, without letting anyone go without a handout. She had everything she bought, except milk, eggs, firewood and a few other little things brought by local peasants in gratitude and payment for sewing. Despite her poverty, Marya Ivanovna had a lamp burning in front of the icons on every Sunday and holiday in the evening. Her situation improved significantly when Vasily Vasilyevich became a professor: she no longer needed to work for a piece of daily bread. For Marya Ivanovna and her son, every day began and ended with fervent prayer with prostrations to the ground. I learned to read and write from you. You. first with his mother, and then at a rural school. It was not wise teaching that the gifted boy received very easily; He spent his free time from preparing homework reading and writing, talking with his mother and performing various household services for her. Mother and son never condemned, scolded, reproached, or called anyone any disapproving name, and they treated people’s vices and shortcomings with regret. The spirit of peace, love and wisdom always reigned in them. Marya Ivanovna and her son made the sign of the cross before the beginning and end of every task, maintained strict fasting even in illness, abstaining from tea until mass on holidays - which, of course, developed good skills in the little one, which laid a solid foundation for his own future religious disposition. The character of your childhood games you. You. stood out from his peers. For example, he built caves that were supposed to represent a monastery, and their children's group portrayed monks, and Vasya Bolotov, covered with a white towel, portrayed the abbot of the monastery. From later childhood they talk about the construction of a small church together with his peers, the material for which was brick prepared for the needs of a real church in the village. The children soon built a small church. But here’s the problem: where can I get the icons? After sufficient reflection and consultation with his comrades, the boy Vasily Bolotov undertook to draw the icon of the Savior himself and after a while he actually painted it. How he drew it is another question, but the point is that the boy undertook to do it and did it. In general, as a child, Vasily Vasilyevich was not particularly sociable and took little part in games and amusements. His mother would say to him: “Vasilyushka, why don’t you go to the boys?” “What should I do with them?” - V. Bolotov will answer. He was rarely seen on the street. His peers lived in the so-called “Popovsky region” village, behind the church fence, on the shore of Lake Seliger. Here Vasily Vasilyevich could be seen on good summer evenings on holidays, and then only for a short time. His usual pastime was reading books, which he could get at his mother’s house, at the priest’s, and at the village school. II. Ostashkovo Theological School In 1863, a nine-year-old boy, Vasily Bolotov, entered the lower class of the Ostashkovo Theological School, and “due to being an orphan, he was accepted on the third salary, and in the first half of 1866 he was promoted to the first salary.” 2 Living conditions in the city, of course, were not the same as in the village, and they certainly had to affect the boy in one way or another. But the life of our district towns, especially those remote from convenient routes of communication, is so simple and patriarchal that it is unlikely that you will live in the new situation. You. It is possible to look for something that more or less noticeably influenced the youth’s state of mind. The organization of training at the school, as can be seen from the report of the superintendent of the school for 1869, was as follows: “All the school’s mentors tried their best to improve the success of students in the subjects they studied. In order for the teaching to proceed correctly, the mentors tried to communicate to the students the subjects they taught in such a volume and in such a way that their teaching actually served for the education of the students. To achieve this goal, they constantly taught educational subjects visually and, moreover, combined, whenever possible, theoretical teaching with appropriate practical exercises. The very method of teaching they used was elementary 3 , that is, visual, rational and developmental, constantly evoking independent thinking and activity in students, and not forcing them to memorize only from memory.” “The techniques used by mentors when teaching academic subjects generally consisted of a simple, clear and visual explanation of the lessons and then catechesis about the lesson explained. The catechesis included: 1) test questions, 2) questions leading the student to the correct idea, concept or judgment, and 3) positive explanations. In particular, according to the catechism, the truths of St. faith was communicated to them in simple conversations, corresponding to their children's concept; – in musical notation, in addition to everyday exercises, students were introduced to simple church singing, and mentors took care of the development of their hearing and taste for singing; – in Russian history, a simple, clear and lively story from the mentor led students to understand the life of the Russian people...; – the study of geography lessons was accompanied by explanations, using a globe, of the relative positions of the continents and simple and silent searches on maps; - in arithmetic, students were guided through heuristic methods to a reasonable understanding of arithmetic operations, moving from elementary to scientific and not being content with just the outer scientific form; – in the Slavic language, students were constantly trained in translating church prayers, troparions, songs, etc. from Slavic into Russian; – the study of the Russian language was combined with students’ training in correct and expressive reading, writing from dictation, etymological and syntactic analysis of words, etc.; – the study of Latin and Greek was combined with translation on paper and on the blackboard from Russian. language in lat. and Greek and vice versa short sentences and full speeches; translations were combined with philological and syntactic analysis of words.” From the same document it is clear that in the student library, with the exception of some spiritual magazines, for example. “Spiritual Conversation” and fragmentary essays on theological subjects, sent at different times by the seminary board, “there were almost no books for students to read,” but despite this, “no questions about improving the educational part of the school during the (reporting) year were raised in the school board” 4. Such conditions of the educational environment, if they did not particularly contribute to the rapid development of V.B., on the other hand, did not prevent him from being what he was, that is, the same talented, hardworking and extremely kind and modest boy. The admission of students to the school, then as now, began with entrance exams carried out by the superintendent of the school. This honorary position was then occupied by a candidate of theology, a priest of the Church of the Transfiguration, and later by the archpriest of the Trinity Cathedral, Fr. I. P. Saltykov. He, testing the thin, dark and nondescript boy Bolotov, was amazed by his reasonable, sensible and courageous answers and asked “what is your last name?” “Bolotov,” the boy answered. “Well, brother, you should give your last name Ozerov, not Bolotov!” By this, of course, he wanted to point out the vastness of his spiritual gifts. During his stay at the school, V.V. studied excellently in all subjects, surprising his mentors with his extraordinary memory, knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and the works of the Holy Fathers. He was a rather lively boy and even a little naughty, but completely childish. He was attentive to his comrades, helping them by explaining their lessons and was friendly to everyone: no one would remember that he offended anyone; he was always busy with work and rarely went out into the school yard to play with his comrades; for the authorities and teachers, he was a beauty and pride, especially when the bishop visited the school and at public exams. At these last ones, he surprised everyone who listened to him with thorough and intelligent answers beyond his years. Opposite the building of the religious school there was a small shop and students of the school often visited it. One day, after the Easter holidays, Bolotov came to the shop, at that time, it seems, a 2nd grade student. The school teacher, Fr., was in the shop at that moment. Lev Preobrazhensky, now deceased. This latter spoke to Bolotov: - Ah, Bolotov! Well, what did you do on Easter - call? “No, I didn’t call,” the boy answered shyly. - So, did you roll eggs? - So what were you doing? - I read the book! – the boy finally decided to reveal his secret. - Dispute between Justin the philosopher and Tryphon the Jew. -What were they arguing about? – the teacher asked in surprise. Here Bolotov, in the same shy tone, but completely calmly and seriously, explained to him the contents of the book he had read. The seriousness of the boy attracted the attention of another Ostashkovsky teacher, the later famous local archaeologist, Vladimir Petrovich Uspensky, († December 29, 1894), who, in a conversation with his students about diligence in learning and devotion to it, once said: “I know only one who sincerely loves learning and is devoted to it - this is Vasily Bolotov.” 5 For the entire six-year course at the school, he stood in one damp, cramped, dirty apartment, rich in miasma and insects, using an allowance from the school board for his maintenance of no more than 24 rubles. per year. His apartment was located near Sinitsina Square, in the house of the cathedral sexton widow, with windows overlooking the courtyard and vegetable garden. This house was located on the dirtiest street, for the drainage of which ditches were built, which rarely dried out and were filled with rotten and musty water. Next to V. Bolotov’s apartment, there was a Jewish chapel in a rented house, in which a Jew, a cutter, and a teacher of Jewish children lived. M. A. Ryazantsev, friend of you. Vasilyevich, who tells us these details, lived not far from him, in another block. “We often,” he says, “especially in the spring, after classes and exams, went to watch Jewish prayers, and sometimes played pranks with their children. Here and from them, you. Vasilyevich became acquainted with the Jewish book language for the first time and learned to read and write in it.” From the time his son was sent to the city, to school, his mother, Marya Ivanovna,’s love for him seemed to intensify even more. At the very least, one cannot listen without surprise and, to some extent, even delight, to the stories of an eyewitness about her efforts and extraordinary care in delivering her son from vacation to the city and back, in summer and winter. “When it was necessary to send her son to theological school, she lit a lamp, sat down with her son on a bench and, with tears in her eyes, fervently prayed on her knees to God to grant her son health, strength and wisdom... Not having the means to rent a boat (this is the only way to communicate between Kravotyn and Ostashkov: in the summer it’s 15 versts along the lake, and up to 30 versts all around by dry route), she set off on foot to the Nilova Hermitage, 6 versts from the village, to the west. The boy always walked ahead of his mother, barefoot in the summer, on the loose sand, carrying his boots under his arm. The mother, when she noticed the fatigue felt by her son, took him “on the wallet” and carried him like that for a mile or two. In the Nile Desert she asked Fr. the archimandrite or treasurer to take his son to the city on a steamship or in a boat, together with the pilgrims, who in those days, on weekdays, were carried by monastery workers, under the control of a novice cashier. Even more remarkable was the way Marya Ivanovna delivered her son to school and back in the winter. Imagine such a picture, says the aforementioned M.A.R., quite worthy of an artist’s brush: “a foggy winter morning with a bitter frost; dawn is just breaking; the trees are covered with lush tassels of frost; nature has not yet awakened from its night's sleep and no one is visible on the road. A human figure appeared in the distance. You look more closely and see a woman dressed in a light hare fur coat, with her sewing mittens on her hands, who is carrying behind her a tattered sleigh with some kind of luggage. What kind of luggage? It turns out - a boy, tightly wrapped in blankets and hiding his face from the frost... The mother-driver hurries forward to get to the place on time... It happened that Marya Ivanovna was caught up by a familiar peasant who was going to the city with fish, invited her to sit on the logs and she sat down, holding in her hands a rope from the sleigh with her son "... III. Tver Theological Seminary of the early 70s 15 years of you. Vasilyevich graduated from the Ostashkovsky Theological School and received a “certificate”, which stated that he, Bolotov, “having entered the school in 1863, studied there, with excellent abilities, excellent zeal and excellent behavior” in all subjects taught at the school, “excellently well”, except for church singing, in which he studied “very well.” 6 With this “certificate” in September 1869, he entered the Tver Theological Seminary, and, as an orphan, was accepted into government support at the then not entirely clean and tidy bursa. In the seminary dormitory or, as it was called then, the bursa, there were usually 65–80 people living in it, while the rest (more than 500) students lived in 150 free apartments in all four parts of the city - Gorodskaya, Zavolzhskaya, Zatveretskaya and Zatmatskaya. The students were accommodated “in seven rooms and in such a way that three large rooms were separated for classes, and four for bedrooms.” “The dining room was special.” The premises for students “were dilapidated, damp and not warm enough and without warm corridors; the washroom was cold. The seminary hospital was located in almost the same premises.” 7 The then order in the seminary building and life in general is perfectly characterized by one of Vasily Vasilyevich’s friends. Describing the beginning of his acquaintance with him, he says: “Vasya drew attention to me because of the power that I sometimes abused to the detriment of my comrades and government beds; Although I didn’t fight with my comrades, but if someone really annoys me, I’ll grab him in my arms and bang him on a bed or a desk. The incident with my bed finally brought me closer to him: once the cook Artemy fed us a raw and rotten dinner, and Makar, the baker, fed us raw bread (it was unthinkable to inform the steward in our time: this amounted to indignation and the informer and his minions would be subject to expulsion from the building). We came to the bedroom hungry and began to take out our frustration on government things... By the way, my iron bed suffered greatly from me, which I completely distorted without any tools, then tied it with a whip and used it until my vacation... Vasya sees that I have strength and began to help me with his knowledge of languages ​​- translation. He used me as a battering ram, and I used him as an expert, and the first thing we agreed to do together was drink tea together. Boiling water for tea was sometimes obtained not without difficulty: a small cube was heated in the kitchen, near which there was always a crowd of students who wanted to get hot water. Those who were more dexterous and stronger got it, but those who were less dexterous and strong happened to be left without water. I went for water, and Vasya was my housekeeper: he would put three teacups in a teapot and never see them! To make the tea disperse better, they tried to use the top hole of the cube, from which steam was coming, and put the kettle on it.” You yourself remember this last circumstance. In one of his letters to this comrade: “These lines are written by... Your classmate at the great “strong-walled” bursa, the Tver Theological Seminary, after evening tea, from a Jewish tin samovar-coffee pot, which is the “younger brother” of that coffee pot, which, by your permission, was steamed and fried for us.” Continuing the memories, the same person adds: “one small piece will always give you sugar: drink as much as you want, but it won’t give you more - better not ask!” Poverty, therefore, was Vasily Vasilyevich’s companion in high school. The squalor and poverty of the then bursa were so significant that Vas himself. V-ch recalls them in a letter to the same comrade in characteristic expressions: “remember,” he says, as a joke, “when all of us, the humble bastards, were in serious danger if we started building a new seminary - to be kicked out with a penny “allowance” into ruble apartments, - you did not give the seminary authorities your blessing for such a criminal undertaking, and assured that it would stand “strong-walled” until you bring your son to the seminary, take him through all the classes and show him on the desks the decorations that you carved on them with a penknife”... This was the situation in which you found yourself from the end of 1869. I plan to receive secondary education in the provincial city of Tver. Since this year, the writer of these lines has personally met you. In-what 8. He was not tall, a stocky and dark-skinned young man, with dark, but not black eyes, ears that were somewhat more prominent than necessary for general harmony, a wide mouth, a melodious voice, an intelligent, open and serious look, and a generally pleasant facial expression. From our first acquaintance with him, we, comrades, saw in him an “all-knowing” student and immediately felt in him a comrade, with whom it would be very difficult to compete, and after a short time we became convinced that it was completely impossible. In particular, two incidents remain in our memory that finally convinced us of his mental superiority: a theologian comes up to him and says: “Vasya! I’m writing an essay on the Holy Scriptures, about this and that... How can I confirm this idea with texts from the Holy Scriptures? And this is the question of an over-aged kid, with a shaved beard and a decent mustache, asking a pygmy, from whom all you can see from behind his desk is one big head... This head rises from the bench and says: “look at the 3rd book of Kings, such and such a chapter, such and such a verse - it seems that it will be okay! Or from the book of Job, such and such a chapter, such and such a verse "... They open the Bible, and what? Just the indicated places were needed! - Another case represents a competition with you. In the knowledge of the Greek language of his fellow student from Tversk. teacher Vas. gave a new, untranslated passage from the Greek book for translation. V-ch translated it perfectly and without any difficulties. When such a translation was proposed by V.N., the latter began to make mistakes and had difficulty translating... “Where are you, Vasily, to argue with him!” - decided A.S. Without arguing or talking, we all unanimously recognized him as our first-born, and soon fell in love with him. In relation to us, your comrades, you. V-ch was an irreplaceable and invaluable assistant and leader in all difficult student circumstances. There was no question, there was no task, there was not such a difficult translation from languages ​​that he would not explain, resolve and explain to us, who often needed his help, with an ease incomprehensible to us. Many of those who wanted to answer the lesson well usually asked him about something. His help was especially valuable when the deadline for submitting an essay came. Usually the mentor gave the topic with an explanation of what and how to write, where to find this or that manual, and sometimes they directly gave out a “help book” which he received for use and for passing on to others, of course, you. V-h, as the best pupil. But one has only to remember the enormous crowd of students in the class, which reached up to 100 people in rhetoric, up to 80 in philosophy, and up to 60 in theology, and the inappropriate arrangement of some classes, to understand that listening to the explanations of mentors was not equally accessible to everyone, and what was heard was forgotten, and the “manual book” was in a single copy (let’s say even in 2, 3 copies, because that sometimes it was possible to get other copies from private libraries) for a huge class, of course, was read only by not many students, while the rest were forced to write positively, sometimes without any knowledge or aids. This is where you are. He was an indispensable assistant. Before the time for submitting an essay, he could be seen surrounded by a group of comrades who wanted to know what and how to write, to whom he explained everything that was needed. Having read the “manual,” he will tell you all the most important things from it, which for many was even incomparably more convenient and useful than reading it yourself. During these explanations, one could see how some, who did not particularly rely on their memory, armed with pencils, hastily wrote down the necessary information. He made no secret of his knowledge, was not a self-indulgent egoist, or unkind - which, unfortunately, are often found in schools - on the contrary, he willingly rushed to help anyone in need and provided this help with his usual accuracy, conscientiousness and slowness, which sometimes displeased some of us, who were in a hurry to somehow and grab something from a lesson that had not been prepared in advance. For the sake of friendship or simply for the sake of good companionship between you. V-ch was always ready to go to the rescue of his comrades under the most difficult circumstances, sometimes finding himself in a delicate position because of this. This is how one of the participants tells one incident. Three of us, students who knew how to play the violin and guitar, were invited to a party at a good friend’s house, located close to the seminary. Out of stupid seminary habit, we didn’t want to get legal leave (and maybe we didn’t count on getting it), and decided to sneak away on the sly. What should I do? The likelihood of being noticed by superiors as absent was very high. And for such things at that time they did not pat them on the head: for unauthorized absence from the bursa at night, even if it happened to the most sober and good student, they were immediately expelled from it, or in the happiest case, they were reduced to half the allowance, i.e., they were allowed to use the government table, but they were not allowed to live in the bursa. You. V-ch was on duty in the building that day. No matter how great the responsibility of the duty officer was at that time, we still turned to him: “Vasya, help out as best you can, and we’ll give you the traction.” “Where will you go? - the gate is locked and there are two Cerberus in the booth (Lavrukha and Ivan) - after all, they won’t give you the key!” Eh, Vasya, if the townsfolk are stealing seminary firewood from behind the bathhouse through the fence, then we are without a burden and God ordered us to step over it! And besides, the fence boards are easy to disassemble: even ride a horse! They rolled up the blanket, put it on the beds, put the felt boots at their feet, covered it with a blanket, as a sign that the person was here, and they themselves were through the fence, and “remember us as we were called.” We arrive for the evening; They've been waiting for us for a long time. We drank some tea, tuned our instruments, got ready to play a square dance and - oh, horror! – one of our bosses is among the dancers! Our hands dropped and our eyes darkened! N sees our helpless situation, comes up to one of us and quietly says: “don’t be embarrassed, but continue to play... Who is on duty? "Bolotov!" “Just don’t sit for more than two hours!” It was like a mountain fell off our shoulders: we were encouraged by such kind treatment and a ray of hope for salvation began to appear for us... We arrived at the appointed time in the building through the old loopholes. We got up in the morning and asked Vasya: how are you? “I don’t know,” he says, “I went to bed at 11 o’clock.” And we ourselves are also afraid to tell him that we got caught - that would mean saying that he, too, was caught for bad duty... But it was also impossible not to tell him everything, because every minute we expected him to be called for an explanation, and we told him everything. However, the call did not come. Another fact proving what he was capable of for the sake of a friendly service. We all knew that you. V-cha could not be lured to any party, to any festivities, to any noisy, secular society, especially young ladies. But for a friend, at his request, he even decided to choose a bride for him - from three girls completely unfamiliar to him! This seems to be the only and little-known case of his conversation with three girls at once. One of his friends, due to his spinelessness, having three brides in mind, could not make a choice between them: he liked them all equally, and the young man did not know how to get out of his difficult situation. He told you everything. V-chu, asking him to choose one of them for him. “Okay, he says, when?” “Yes, today, after the all-night vigil.” Bolotov dressed up, even put on the starched shirtfront prepared for the exam and became a real dandy. The groom appointed the young ladies the hour and place of the meeting, namely: in the “Governor’s Garden”, in a round gazebo, and in order to kindle their curiosity, he told them that he would come with Bolotov. Everyone in the city knew him as a remarkably talented student: both realists, and high school students, and high school girls. “We’re going with him,” says the groom, and the young ladies are already waiting there. I recommended Bolotov to them... Vasya was reborn: an uncontrollable flow of conversations and questions poured out - that the river had broken the dam! He talked about different subjects, and moved from one to another so consistently that it was simply a miracle!... He asked their opinions and conclusions on various issues... So I think, how cunning he is! Where does he get all this from? That’s how the hermit is: I’m used to it, and I should have been silent and listened more!... We said goodbye and went to the building for dinner. On the way, I ask: “Where did you, Vasya, learn the wisdom to communicate with young ladies? “From psychology,” he says, and from psychological books. After dinner we went for a walk around the yard (the comrades knew nothing and did not even suspect: it was a great secret for everyone except us: only the young ladies then began to chat to seminarians they knew that they had seen Bolotov and got to know him). “Well, Vasya, what can you say about them: which is better?” “The best of all is N: she is both smart and a housewife; It’s a little hot, but that’s okay – life will cool down!” Comrade groom acted on your advice. To this day, he still has no reason to complain about his friend’s choice. In general, in relation to friendship, it should be said that you. V-h, as a nature in which the intellectual side predominated, he was not capable of exceptional affection. There was no such love in him: he treated everyone with the same disposition and - rather respected than loved. Always even-tempered, always friendly, always ready to talk and tell anything, never smoking or drinking vodka or wine, and at the same time always being among his comrades, who sometimes allowed themselves unapproving words and actions, dousing him with streams of tobacco smoke, he unwittingly won everyone over in his favor. He did not shy away from anyone, did not say words of reproach or condemnation to anyone. On the contrary, pretending that he did not see or hear anything, he joked, quoted Homer, Cicero, recalled some incidents from his life and, generally speaking, he himself was complacent and forced others to be complacent. Himself an example of strict diligence in relation to the non-petty and undemanding seminary discipline of that time, fulfilling religious duties like none of us, without skipping any of the services (they then went to the nearby St. Nicholas Church, or to the Cathedral), he was extremely lenient towards the weaknesses and hobbies of his comrades. Many in his presence were embarrassed to do and say what they considered completely permitted in his absence. Studying the subjects of the seminar course for you. V-chu, in our comradely opinion, was extremely easy. It was as if he didn’t study his lessons: we only saw that he was constantly reading books (not textbooks), and when he taught his lessons, it was difficult to notice. He was with the book in the classroom, and in the seminary courtyard, and in the bedroom, and in the fence of St. Nicholas Church. He read everything: the works of the Holy Fathers and the historical works and lexicons of Gederick and Kronberg, and Wagner, and Bukharev, and Hartwig, and Nekrasov and Granovsky, 9 and all kinds of other books that could only be obtained in Tver at that time. He read Latin and Greek books freely at the seminary. German is the first of the new languages ​​that he thoroughly studied in seminary. In his opinion, it is possible to learn to understand a foreign language very quickly: to do this, you only need to buy a lexicon and spend two weeks using it to do some kind of translation, but about grammar, etc. don't worry too much. At the seminary, he began studying English, and it was in one of the last years of his studies there, on walks near the harbor. As for the French language, then, according to our personal memories, we cannot say anything about it. But we know the following fact. Among the seminary mentors are you. V-ch was considered ignorant of this language. But, being in the 6th grade, he surprised everyone with a request addressed to the aforementioned A.S., who was also a teacher of the French language, to test him in his knowledge of this language and to put a mark on this in the certificate. “Yes,” the amazed A.S. told him, with his usual expressive gestures, “you didn’t study with me!” “What, I didn’t study,” Vas answered him. B-ch, but I learned it on my own and I want you to examine me and give me a point!” “Come on, read it,” answered A.S., handing him a French book. You. Whew, I read it and translated it properly... “Good, good, even decent”! – exclaimed A.S. The requested mark on the certificate was given. You are in the seminary. V-ch began to study some eastern languages, for example. Syrian and Arabic. He advanced so much in his knowledge of Jewish that he already used it in the 4th year of his studies there. So, in 1873, a teacher of biblical history, Rev. J.S. The topic was given: “What especially attracted the Jews to idolatry?” Everyone wrote, as usual, but you. V-ch surprised the teacher with the knowledge of the Hebrew language, which he discovered in this essay. “Oh, brother, you’re a Jew, a Jew!” - exclaimed the mentor, returning the essay to the author after reading. You. V-ch in the seminary was always the first student, for whom the usual mark was 5 and 5+. Mentor M.K. Ch-v., whom we called the “seminar Chrysostom”, for his ability to speak eloquently, even once said that Bolotov should be written down first, and then, skipping about 70 numbers, the second student should be appointed, etc. His answers in exams often amazed the examiners. “There is a story conveyed to one of the mentors of the Tver Seminary by the Archpriest of the St. Petersburg Ascension Church V. Ya. Mikhailovsky that the Right Reverend Philotheus, present at the Seminary for a theological exam and listening to Bolotov’s answers on patristics and the quotes he cited by heart from the Greek and Latin fathers of the church, protected himself with the sign of the cross, as if surprised an extraordinary marvel - a phenomenon" 10. Not many of his seminary works that have survived testify to the same thing, but those that have survived are of such a kind that, due to the maturity of his thoughts, they still deserve to be printed in their entirety. One of them, written by you. In the sixth grade of the seminary, and moreover in the subject in which he later became such a first-class specialist, we present it in the appendix to this essay, and we pay attention to it as outstanding for a high school student 11. In relation to your teachers you. V-ch was a completely respectful and attentive, but not without consciousness of his own dignity, student. He listened to their explanations with all attention, but did not miss the opportunity to supplement them and develop them with greater detail when an opportunity presented itself, for example, when a lesson was answered, or when he was asked to resolve this or that “objection” 12. In these cases, before our eyes, his enormous knowledge and erudition unfolded in all its breadth. The mentors, who were convinced of the aforementioned qualities of the talented young man and knew how to appreciate them, were not offended, but, on the contrary, listened with pleasure to his answers and explanations and with all the attentiveness that they deserved, and some put up with the corrections he made, and in general, did not treat him quite the way they usually treat students. The facts related to this, for very understandable reasons, cannot yet be fully disclosed, but some of the most convenient ones can be cited in support of what has been said. M.K. Ch., whose opinion about Bolotov we have already cited, translating: “Disputationes Tusculanae,” often asked your opinion. Question, how best to translate this or that difficult passage. Usually, this happened under the following circumstances: he asked some student and corrected his translation, and in conclusion, he often turned to you. V-chu: “Well, how would Mr. Brlotov translate this passage?” He stood up and, bringing the book very close to his eyes (he was quite short-sighted), began to translate as he thought best. And I don’t remember that M.K., who himself knew the Latin language very well, ever disagreed with the editors of his translation, but usually said: “yes, indeed, it’s better to convey the shade of thought this way.” You. In case of similar requests, he pointed out the use of the word being analyzed in other Latin writers or in the one being translated, but in a different place, and we, together with the mentor, listened to him with pleasure and surprise. Another teacher, for example, stated that he could not come to his lesson the next day, and entrusted us with you. V-chu, who, he said, “will show you and explain what you need.” The third, who himself knew his subject very well, gave the assignment to you. I want to make a translation for him from some publication, and you. The teacher performed this task with such care and precision that the teacher was completely satisfied with him. Another, no less than the previous one, who knew and presented his subject perfectly, said that when explaining a lesson in class, “no, no, and you’ll see if Bolotov winces.” Such was your mental and moral character. V-cha during his studies at the Tver Seminary. But it would be a mistake, or at least one-sidedness, to think that the way he was, he owed exclusively to his natural abilities and his hard work, and that school and the environment gave him nothing or, in one way or another, did not contribute to his development in this direction. On the contrary, the school, that is, the Tver Seminary of that time, with all its procedures, the organization of education and training in it, the selection of mentors and, in general, its entire structure, had a significant and completely special influence on all students then. We find it difficult to say what name to designate this influence (it is so difficult), but from what follows, we hope the reader will see for himself what kind of influence this is and find a name for it. Our job is to convey as accurately as possible the factual side of the matter, as far as the proximity of the time being described allows. The then structure of educational life in the Tver Seminary, which at that time had not yet been transformed, resembled in some features more the structure of a higher school than a secondary one, and even a spiritual one. There were no thick textbooks, filled with a lot of unnecessary, or at least superfluous, little things that only burden the student’s memory, instead of helping to strengthen it. Not without influence, probably, this circumstance had on the fact that later from the lips of you. One could often hear the expression: μέγα βιβλίον, μέγα κακόν, and that he himself wrote not “great books”, but “small ones”, but containing “much” in small things. Instead of books, we gleaned knowledge from “professorial” (according to the terminology of that time) lectures, and the aid for them were small written “notes” on almost all subjects of the seminar course, composed for the most part sensibly, and containing the most necessary and brief information. These notes, sold very cheaply (30, 40 kopecks per course) and compiled by someone unknown and when, were passed from course to course and, when they became dilapidated, were rewritten again. Usually they were a reduction of the academic courses of the good old days and in general they were more than good, such as, for example. notes on patrolology (or patristics), on St. writing, logic and other subjects. Not much inferior to them are those written, if we are not mistaken, by M.K.Ch. - notes on pedagogy and didactics. When presenting science itself, teachers were not particularly constrained by one or another external requirement, but presented it freely, guided by what was most necessary and useful for us to know, and what they themselves knew better. This way of studying the sciences, so to speak, only according to their schemes, making it possible to easily master the subject, left a lot of scope for amateur activities and at the same time - a lot of time for reading books; and the copying of notes itself, which was occasionally necessary, was far from a useless exercise. Among other features of the then organization of education at the Tver Seminary, the following should be noted: a relatively small range of subjects of study, a fairly successful selection of them, relative undemandingness in study and, finally, the lack of application of programs (since the seminary, as stated, was transformed only in the 1874 - 1875 academic year). Here, for example, is the range of subjects in which we took exams at the end of the first year in philosophy class, in 1872. June 21 - in Biblical history, 26 - in pedagogy, 28 - in Holy Scripture, July 3 - in physics, 4 - in Latin, 5 - in logic with psychology, 7 - in Greek and 10 - in Russian history. A total of 8 subjects, including two of them combined together (logic with psychology) at a time. In the year before the transformation, the number of subjects by class was as follows: in the theological class 8, in philosophy 8, in rhetoric 6 13. Thus, we did not study many subjects, which were later introduced into the curriculum as independent subjects. So, for example, we did not teach trigonometry, cosmography, a review of philosophical doctrines, the history of the Russian schism, but instead studied only patristics and biblical history (the latter, however, was not considered by us to be a special subject, because its content was well known to us from the school course and its seminar repetition did not give us anything new or any work). It is unlikely that we suffered significant damage without studying such sciences as cosmography, trigonometry, a review of philosophical teachings and the history of the Russian schism. The fairly significant amount of free time at our disposal gave us the opportunity to read courses by Gano, Schedler, Humboldt and Hartwig and others, and on the philosophy of Bauer, Schwegler, Kunofischer and others. The history of the Russian schism was in our time no more, no less than a “chapter” in the history of the Russian church and this, it seemed to us, was quite enough for it. Shchapov's essay on the split, however, was well known to us. The inclusion of patristics in the seminar course had a particularly beneficial effect on us, which was further enhanced by its masterful presentation by M.K. Ch-m. The requirements for studying subjects were not particularly strict. The classes were extremely crowded, for example, in rhetoric there were 298 people in three departments - almost 100 people per class! Lessons were rarely asked; It also happened that someone was never asked for a whole year, meanwhile he received an annual score and answered correctly in the exam. In general, this was a time when you could study properly, and you could not study properly, and still complete the course satisfactorily. They adhered to more ancient orders, according to which it was considered quite sufficient for a student to study well in the main subjects. The rector usually, when he couldn’t cope with the report card, put a bracket in the certificate on the right side of the names of the subjects, and after it he wrote: “excellent good” or “very good.” There was enough complacency on both sides... The so-called “programs” of subjects, although they existed since 1868 and were considered mandatory, in fact, until 1874, under one pretext or another, they were little used. In justification of this, the seminar reports pointed out “the discrepancy between the programs sent from the Theological Educational Committee and the textbooks - the disproportion between the time allocated for teaching some subjects and the volume in which these subjects should be taught according to the newly sent programs - the insufficient preparation of students for studying some subjects of the seminar course using new textbooks and the lack of alignment of these latter with the degree of development of the students... As a result, changes and deviations from the programs were allowed with the consent of the rector” 14. However, this evasion from the use of programs does not seem to involve significant damage to our education. The programs connected both teacher and student in one way or another. This became especially noticeable for us since 1875, when teachers, instead of the previous free presentation of their subject and enthusiastic lectures, began to worry about completing programs, and students, instead of independently acquiring knowledge, began to care about memorizing one or another mandatory answer to the question posed in the program. And since there were extremely many of these questions in the programs, we had no time left to think, read, or reflect. Under the previous order, everything that was not essential was usefully skipped, but now all this has become impossible. At the same time, the previous division of sciences into major and studied, and secondary and poorly studied, became no longer possible. A further condition that gave a special structure to the life of the then Tver Seminary, which we have already mentioned in passing, but which, in its significance, deserves to be considered separately, was the significant amount of free time we had, which we used to read books and compose essays. The student library, founded in 1866, in our time was still very poor in books and was located in a “cramped and uncomfortable” room, while the fundamental one “was located in two rooms. One half of it (large) is in the cathedral bell tower (where it is still located in 1900), the other is made up of books issued to students for use in the seminary building... The latter included books “in Latin and Greek 109, in Russian 1212, in French 17, in German 56, Polish 1, in little-known 6; manuscripts - 94; periodicals 151.” 15 As you can see, the choice of books to read was not particularly rich. We made up for this deficiency by reading books from the city public library, and Kuzmin’s private library (later Kashkin’s), and at the same time, we indiscriminately read all sorts of books, including magazines. At that time there was no division of books into permitted and not permitted; 16 and the latter were read with the same indifference as all other books, or rather, the majority were not read at all, because only those who wanted to learn read, and those who did not want to, either did not read anything at all, or were content with fiction. We read all sorts of “naturalists”, translations of whose works abounded in Russian literature of that time, we also read combative articles in the then journal literature and were carried away by them, but I don’t remember that anything serious came out of it that ruined people, because the seminary teachers, and especially A.V.S., no matter what subject was discussed in class, constantly reduced it to analysis and criticism of the then fashionable materialist teachings. I even remember the fact how our seminary natural philosophers once entered into a competition with schoolchildren in a garden gazebo in the governor’s garden, reproaching them for being excessively Darwinophile. Any new and interesting work read and the ideas contained in it were then subjected to a comprehensive discussion in a friendly circle, during those large intervals between lessons that existed at that time, thanks to the division of the school day into three lessons, lasting 1 hour each, and in reality not exceeding an hour. I vividly remember those hot, lively conversations about what we read - at the seminary bathhouse, or in the seminary courtyard - with which hundreds of hours were filled with enormous benefit for our mental development!... You. V-ch read extremely much, and incomparably more than ours, due to his familiarity with foreign languages, but nothing bad touched his pure and bright soul. Varied reading only awakened thought, inspired it, sharpened talent, rousing the spirit of analysis and healthy criticism in which you. V-ch, as it later turned out, had few equals in the history of Russian theological thought... That’s why we see that from you. In the end, no one-sided denier came out, but a giant of thought and knowledge and a deeply religious person, who even left us “a covenant of an internal combination of knowledge and faith, a covenant of free scientific research in the field of church historical science, with full attention and obedience to the universal church universal tradition” 17. Compiling essays on topics given by mentors was a task that consumed another part of the free time at our disposal. This is work that in our time was looked at quite seriously and which, therefore, had to be treated with the utmost care. Given the insufficiency of the usual way of judging the development of a student, through his verbal requests in class (since the latter were very numerous), many mentors willingly resorted to this auxiliary means, and it often happened that a talented and skillfully composed essay was decisive in determining both the degree of development of the student and his place in the lists. Therefore, when composing the essay, every effort was made to ensure that it turned out successful, for which purpose not a single article from this or that book or magazine was looked through and re-read. The mentors, for the most part, treated our work with the care it deserved, correcting even minor errors in thought, style, style and language. To the indicated features of the educational system of the Tver Seminary of the early seventies, some other features should be added that are very important for a clear understanding of the situation that surrounded and in one way or another influenced your upbringing. Whew. We have already pointed out the enormous number of students in the class, sometimes reaching up to a hundred people, and which had the direct consequence that the teacher did not have the physical opportunity to study each student and guide his development. As a result, many very talented young men who were willing and able to study perished only because there was no one to pay attention to them and properly guide them. Usually, teachers, although of course not all of them, nominated two or three lucky students, with whom they mostly studied during class hours; the rest, it was assumed, were supposed to listen and from this listening take away everything that was necessary for them. To understand how difficult and even impossible this was for many, you need to remember the location of some classes. Here, for example, is the setting of the philosophy class in which we spent two academic years - 187½ and 187⅔. It was a long, narrow room, dimly lit from the narrow sides by three windows on the north side (from the Volga side) and two on the south (from the seminary courtyard). Opposite the two windows there were three rows of awkward long desks, 4 in each row and each with a capacity for 6–7 people. Opposite the third window, running the entire length of the classroom, there was a long, narrow strip of free space along which the teacher could walk when he got tired of sitting in his chair. The chair and the table with it stood closer to the northern windows, opposite the 2nd desk of the 1st row. You. V-ch sat first, just opposite the middle window. This place was a favorite stopping place for teachers when they talked with you. V-m. Rarely did any of them, in their movements around the class, penetrate further than the 2nd desk, then turn either to the table, or to the board that stood right there next to it, or to the indicated stopping place. The only exception was A.V.S-v, who walked around the entire length of the classroom from the northern windows all the way to the front door. The students sitting near the teacher could see and hear everything well, but the whole half of the class at the opposite end of the room (3 rows - 6 desks) could neither see nor hear anything. Those sitting there usually did nothing and did not listen to anything. When their mentors asked them, the comrades had to repeat the teacher’s call, calling out their names loudly. All this was the reason that only half of the students in the class were in conditions more or less favorable for education. The few, the best students, and especially those on whom the mentors' special attention was focused, actually developed; their mental faculties were refined, and one might say, as many times as those of others weakened and decreased. Our Vas was such a lucky man. Well, because teachers constantly turned to him with one or another question. In addition, in relation to him, the fact is also important that the need to constantly help his weakest comrades - which, as said, he never refused to anyone - put him in the need to be constantly ready to provide this help, that is, he, as if involuntarily, had to know everything and know better than others in order to be able to explain... If we add to the peculiarities of the then system of the Tver Seminary that, with a six-year course, there were only 3 classes: rhetoric, philosophy and theology, so those who were left for repeat courses in the same class for lack of success had to serve two years each time - the division of study hours into 3 lessons, 1 hour in each, and half an hour from each lesson was wasted - for more than an hour, or even less than one of the teachers went to class - the duration of the school year was from September 1 to July 15 (the excessive burden of which was especially felt during exams, which fell during the hottest time of the year), then with this, perhaps, we exhaust all the features of the then educational system of the Tver Seminary. It remains to be said about the mentors and their attitude to their work. Here we encounter more subtle and more clearly definable influences on the formation of your mental and moral character. Whew. Unfortunately, for very obvious reasons, we can only talk about the faces of the dead. This is how, in relation to one of the mentors, you yourself. V-ch assessed this influence. In a letter to him on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his priesthood (in February 1899), he wrote: “Allow one of those who was your student at the time when you stood at the zenith of your professorial activity to say a few words in gratitude for this past. By the will of the Almighty, Your Reverence was instructed to carry out activities in a modest auditorium of a secondary educational institution; but at our alma mater Seminarium Twerense you taught in such a way that your students have the right to consider themselves happy that they were your students. In our truly revered Grigory Petrovich, we saw a strict professor, but strict, first of all, to himself, who did not allow himself any relaxation in the performance of his duty. Your audience, the most honorable Fr. Archpriest, you knew how rare it is for anyone, and you were a truly wise master in it, who knows how to “give to his listeners during their lives,” offering them the food that is accessible to their understanding. Your serious word was marked for us with the stamp of indisputably obligatory, because you proposed it in such a way that we could not help but think: this must be known, because it can be known. Standing above the attacks of scientific fashion, like any fashion - not immutable, you have shown yourself to be a true master in self-restraint. No embellishments that were not according to the scientific means of a secondary educational institution found access to your lessons. Teaching before an immature audience, which is so easily carried away by ringing phrases and the very abundance of beautiful words, mistaking them for the wealth of thought, you spoke to us with that didactically sustained high laconicism that does not tolerate unnecessary words. Your speech shone with that simplicity that is given only to a chosen few. Your phrase has been brought to the level of the simplest and most natural shell of your clear thought. Listening to you, we have learned to understand that what is practical is the best. You wanted to give us non multa, sed multum and, above all, a solid and easily applicable method of research. And you mastered it in such a way that even your young listeners recognized the moral right to be individual. You protected them from the shame of an unfair transaction with someone else’s, perhaps misunderstood, thought, when there was no obvious confidence in its complete consistency. And I dare to think that in your lessons we not only learned, but also grew spiritually to the best of our personal capabilities. All these dear features, of course, now many, many of us, scattered across the latitudes of the earth in positions that we had never dreamed of, prompt us more than once to turn with love and gratitude in our memories to the modest classroom at the Tver Seminary of the seventies, to the lessons of the Holy Scriptures, to our venerable professor and sincerely wish him and “in old age” a cloudlessly clear evening of life.” 18 To this excellent characteristic, we can only add that he was a truly invaluable mentor, who possessed the inimitable art of presenting and explaining the most difficult passages from the Old Testament writings... In addition to him, teachers such as Archpriest Alexander Vasilyevich Sokolov, Archpriest Ivan Stepanovich Vasilievsky and Ivan Savvich Morev cannot but be mentioned with a sense of appreciation and gratitude. Alexander Vasilyevich in each pupil was primarily interested in his moral side, placing it incomparably above his mental qualities and therefore always leaned in favor of the pupil, even if not outstanding in mental knowledge, but impeccable in behavior. “He tried not so much to enrich them with knowledge as to instill the fear of God in their hearts” 19. This is the main idea of ​​all his conversations with us, no matter what subject he explains, and especially often heard in pedagogy lessons in the philosophy class. With a scholastic method of thinking, his speech, however, was meaningful, smooth, sparkling with wit and an abundance of analytical subtleties. When he analyzed various anti-Christian teachings (in the theological class), he was able to cope with the most confusing doctrines, resolving them into a number of separate provisions, the weak sides of which became clear to us somehow by themselves. Then, he always spoke impromptu, which is why his lessons, despite their significantly longer duration than those of other mentors, were never boring or tiring. Ivan Stepanovich Vasilievsky enjoyed great love from his students for his fatherly relationship with them. “The lessons he taught were not official, dry, put into a certain frame, but were conversations between a father and his children: they were simple, understandable, lively and breathed warmth of feeling and sincerity. He was one of those mentors who, although they do not have comprehensive knowledge, try right there - in front of their students - to understand and clarify the truth: they seem to think out loud and develop their thoughts, invite students to participate as much as possible, guide, direct, indicate the goal and final conclusion of thinking, so that the whole class forms, as it were, one thinking person, and, to the best of their ability, the question is resolved, the truth is clarified and becomes the property of the whole class. Everyone is happy with the decision because everyone, under the guidance of the mentor, took part in it. This undoubtedly extremely fruitful teaching method was used by Ivan Stepanovich with particular success in teaching biblical history. The lessons on this subject of the seminar course were extremely lively, and the teacher, offering various perplexed questions for the whole class to solve, allowed the students to pose similar questions” 20 . Alexey Savvich Morev, served in the seminary from 1848 to 1875. We heard a lot of good things about this old man from our fathers who studied with him, and therefore, when entering the seminary, we first of all looked for him, as if he had known a person for a long time, and, having seen him, we were convinced that the fathers were right. He was an extremely kind and benevolent mentor who did not punish us strictly for any offense. He taught the Holy Scriptures to our fathers and, according to their reviews, was excellent, but we knew him only as a teacher of Greek and French. He knew and taught both of these languages ​​well and knew how to enliven their dryness with interesting stories, often having nothing to do with the subject being taught. He was extremely simple in his dealings with us; he often talked as with equals, meeting us on the street, in the seminary courtyard and in other places. About other deceased mentors, in view of the fact that you. V-ch studied with them very little, or did not study at all, we find it possible not to mention. In conclusion of our description of the structure of educational life at the Tver Seminary in the early 70s, we must say that you. V-ch always had full respect for the Tver Seminary that educated him, and he always recalled the school years spent within its walls with the liveliest pleasure. IV. Vasily Vasilievich Bolotov – student of the Academy The decision - after completing the course to enter the Theological Academy, and specifically the St. Petersburg Academy, was made by him quite independently, even contrary to the advice of some comrades to enter one of the universities. So, one of them used all means to persuade him to go not to the Academy, but to the university, but you. V-ch decisively declared that his nature somehow contained the desire to “go with the flow,” that is, to go where the most natural and closest path from the theological school leads - to the Academy, and to the rector and inspector of the Tver Seminary, who asked him which of the Academies he would like to go to - both Muscovites, and who probably wanted him to enter the Moscow Academy - he also definitely called St. Petersburg Theological Academy, as the most favorably furnished in scientific terms. Due to circumstances completely beyond his control, it so happened that you were sent to the Academy. V-ch entered not the first, but the second student. But the power of things - his extraordinary talents and an extraordinary supply of various scientific information at his age, excellent knowledge of ancient and modern languages ​​- soon forced him to return the primacy that rightfully belonged to him. Professor I.E. Troitsky to a high-ranking official who recommended you to him. Well, he answered: “I wish they would send us more of these from seminaries!” In relation to his responsibilities, to his comrades and friends, both new and old, and in general to the entire new system of life surrounding him. V-ch remained the same Bolotov as we saw him in the seminary. From the very moment he entered the Academy, he sat down to his current work, like a true studiosus, paying little attention to activities and interests that were not related to science. He either didn’t read newspapers at all, or only read them in fits and starts. In letters to friends from this period of time, we read: “I learned about the Poznansky case only through rumors. I don’t know anything about the Gulak-Artemovskaya case, except the name, and also the fact that this case seems to smell like promissory notes and forgery. The Afghan expedition is terra incognita for me, and the machinations of Lord Wickonsfield are e tutti quanti, too. I don’t follow literature well: I didn’t finish reading “Tancred”, “Nizika” 21 - too... Well, for “At a Great Price” 22 an exception was made: I listened to how others read... I read Disraeli (Wickonsfield)’s novel “Lothaire”, becoming interested in it because - they said (and - indeed) - that you won’t find “holy oits” in it. It’s possible to become interested, perhaps, but “Tancred” is still more interesting: the environment and place are more unfamiliar. Very few of the “thick” magazines have also been read: there is nothing new left in them - an untouched corner. As far as I remember, I have read the entire “Church Bulletin”. “Church-Public” – also almost all of them; from the “Orthodox Review” - most of it, from the “Christian Reading” - too. In the last two books there is a translated article by Inns: “The Trial of I. Christ” - it would be worth reading for you too, ... the first half (“The Jewish Court”) - in my opinion - is better than the second. At the moment I am interested (or perhaps, “we are interested”) in a new article by D. A. Khvolson, which is already published in the first book “Christ. Readings" (January - February) for 1879. In its main subject, it promises to be interesting only in philological terms, and even then for people with a weakness for oriental languages; but maybe Daniil Abramovich, in passing, will touch on things that will make his article interesting and not only for the (above-mentioned) Orientalist amateurs. The “appendices” will contain the beginning of the interpretation of the book of the prophet Jeremiah - the work of our highly respected associate professor Ivan Stepanovich Yakimov. According to reliable rumors, this article represents only a slightly popular summary of the lectures he gave us last year. This gives you the opportunity to imagine yourself for a few hours in our auditorium No. 1 (large, senior) and listen to some of the best academic lectures. However, I must warn you that the beginning of this prophetic book is quite simple, and there is still nothing for the scientist’s exegetical talent to develop to its full extent; wait for the commentary on verses 23–24 of the 2nd chapter, and you will see.” From September 6, 1877, he nailed himself to the topic given by I.V. Cheltsov: “Origen’s Doctrine of the Holy Trinity,” which he first developed for his candidate’s essay, and then, it also served as the subject of development for his master’s essay. Already at this time (1877) he wrote to his friend, M.A.: “Who is Origen, you have not had a chance to find out; I'll try to be more vague. This is a star of the first magnitude among the catechetes (professors of theology) of the Alexandrian catechetical school (in the 2nd century, the first Christian academy) and perhaps the most glorious name in the Christian world of his time, a man whose works constitute an era in the history of theological thought, “diamond” and “brass from the inside,” as he was called, a 70-year-old confessor and, perhaps, only due to the refined prudence of his tormentors not a martyr for Christ († 254). He was highly valued by St. Athanasius the Great; “The three great Cappadocians” (St. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa) were ardent admirers and - in essence - students of Origen. But the Arians also ascribed to themselves the honor of being his followers, and St. Epiphanius of Cyprus considered him the source of all heresies of the 4th century; and the excitement raised over Origen finally turned into a storm, ending in the exile of St. John Chrysostom almost to our Caucasus. About the 1st century passed and the Council of Constantinople in 543 proclaimed not eternal memory, but anathema to Origen. From this, of course, you did not learn who (quis, qualis) Origen was, but perhaps you felt how great (quantus) he was, and how knotty (to put it this way) his teaching was, if the holy universal teachers revered him and cursed his councils. But the convenience of this topic (if we ignore its internal interest) is that, having collected all the sources and manuals around me, I can sit at home and not have to wander 3 miles to the library almost every evening” 23. Then, you. V-ch was interested in the debates taking place at the academy and gave a detailed account of all of them in his letters to friends and especially to his mother. The judgments expressed in such cases by their accuracy, clarity and, in general, by the intelligence that is seen in them, represent the richest material for characterizing both himself and all the persons and events he describes. We will present what is possible to give an idea about you. Firstly, as an intelligent observer of the scientific events that interested him. Here, for example, is what he writes regarding one master’s disputation: “Church Messenger” turned out to be surprisingly silent... The disputant (or what is also the master’s student) was objected to by x ., y ., (official opponents) z and n (volunteers); x was x, that is, acted with the brilliance and determination of the French cavalry; y - y t. That is, he did not object much, modestly, delicately and thoroughly; z was not z in almost everything, which surprised us - because he hit as it was at the very center, and not at the periphery (as we feared), he broke against the very essence, and not against little things, and only once showed himself in his everyday image, clinging to n on the account of “Urim and Thummim” - in a word, our z really broke, he broke more boldly, almost even with determination (less fire in attack, at the first onslaught, but the advantage: the stubborn persistence of the infantryman) x, and all the dexterity and masterful speech of our o. R., in order to make up for the not entirely pleasant (for the disputant) impression from this skirmish, and to cover up the gaps that z had made. Objections n were the last both in order of time and in internal dignity (for everything meaningful was just a repetition in other words of what was said x and z, and the rest, to a more or less significant extent, approached trifles." In relation to his comrades, as far as the writer of these lines knows, he was the same friendly, sociable and irreplaceable assistant as he was in the seminary. His outstanding knowledge was known among us, junior students, and we sometimes happened to turn to him for help and advice. So, I remember the case when he was already in the 3rd year, we freshmen were given the topic: “Locke's Doctrine of Simple Ideas” and the manual indicated Versuch uber den menschlichen Verstand, which had not yet been translated into Russian. Some of us found it difficult to translate some of the passages we needed from this work. Let's go to you. Well, to his busy room, and he translated and explained the places we needed without any difficulty. Continuing his studies of oriental languages, which he had begun in the seminary, he sometimes initiated some of his fellow amateurs into the secrets of this type of knowledge. So, for one of them, at his request, he wrote a translation into Ethiopian of the Oratio Dominica in a few minutes, even providing it with notes on Ethiopian transcription and pronunciation. In general, in the Academy, as in the seminary, life is yours. The school was entirely devoted to science alone, and everything not related to it interested him little. He almost never left the Academy. “Your most humble servant,” he writes to one friend, leaves the Academy almost as often as a bear leaves its den in winter.” Outside the Academy, he could only be found going to the Imperial Public Library. We will not, however, list all the facts known to us relating to this period of his life - let those who are more closely acquainted with them do this - and let us move directly to the time from which he acquired a scientific and literary name and from which his fame and authority began to move forward with rapid steps. V. Vasily Vasilievich – professor and scientist A number of scientific works began with his master's thesis on the topic: “Origen's Doctrine of the Holy Trinity 25. The public defense of this dissertation, which took place on October 28, 1879, just a few months after he completed the course, was, according to Professor P. N. Zhukovich, “a true celebration of the chosen one of science, which had no other similar in subsequent academic life” 26 . December 12 of the same year you. V-ch took over the duties of a professor at the Academy. My first impressions as a professor of you. V-ch describes it in the following way in a letter to a friend: “I gave the first lecture (about Konstantin V.) in the presence of Fr. Rector (which I did not expect: usually introducing a young teacher, Father Rector remains no more than two minutes) and standing on the lectern (the usual sign of politeness for a newcomer). On Saturday the 27th I was already reading alone and sitting. I still haven’t gotten used to my position and am embarrassed when I have to sit at the pulpit, so the help of a notebook is still essential (Jan. 1880). Because of this (due to myopia), I do not see my listeners... Another feature of my position is that before a lecture I have to go to the reading room (a meeting for professors) and meet there - in uniform, therefore with an outward sign of equality - with my teachers. The transition from the relationship of a student to a professor to the relationship of a colleague is, of course, not an easy or dexterous thing. I, of course, did not acquire equality in the full sense (and, of course, I will never acquire it): in the correct, normal course, the moral difference always remains between senior teachers and (former students of) juniors, - between associate professors and professors; the claim of the former to complete equality with the latter would be an indicator of arrogance, enthusiasm, and generally hostile, unhealthy relations in the corporation... In general, from this side of things, my affairs are such that I can’t wish for anything more: my appearance in the teaching circle was received - as far as my insignificant experience allows us to judge - very cordially by everyone and everyone with whom I had to meet. My transition from a certain subordination to relative equality was facilitated by three main circumstances: a) the relations of professors to students in Academies are generally distinguished by delicacy; b) my principals, such as M. O. Koyalovich (dean of the church history department and ordinary professor of Russian civil history) and I. E. Troitsky (ordinary professor of modern church history) are kind to me to the point of simplicity; c) I was chosen unanimously, and therefore I have no reason to suspect that any of those who extend their hand to me, in their souls, would not at all want to look at me.” Compiling lectures on ancient general church history for Academy students, according to you. Well, it cost him a lot of trouble and took him a lot of time and labor. Here he first came across the question: how to organize this course of lectures so that their content was not a repetition of only the generally known. The fact is that ancient church history is a science highly developed by Western European scientists, based on primary sources written in languages ​​much closer and better known to them than to Russian scientists. Thus, for a Russian professor, when constructing a course, a choice would be made: either to repeat already generally known facts obtained by others, on the basis of primary sources known to them, or only to check the views based on these primary sources. You. V-ch could not be satisfied with either one or the other. He decided to treat himself completely independently, both to the sources and to the views based on them, in order to “take a completely independent and equal position among the scientists of our time, who enjoy general fame and well-deserved authority in science” 28. That's how you are. V-ch writes about this in a letter to his schoolmate and friend Alexei Petrovich Florensky 29 dated 18 xxx 97). “When I was appointed to the department (of church history), I made a promise to myself, which I keep unbreakably to this day. Much is written on church history. It is physically impossible to re-read everything written. Some books and especially articles are unavailable because they are very expensive. But - I decided - it will not be that, as an apology to myself, I refer to the fact that both an important book for science and an accessible (affordable) book for me is written in a language I do not understand. According to this principle, I have recognized as obligatory the languages ​​of the primary sources of ancient church history: Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopian and Armenian.” With this view of your task, you. V-ch, in his professorial lectures on church history to students of the Academy, “he is not a compiler of scientific research by historians of Western theological science, but a completely independent scientist who, based on primary sources, created the past life of the Christian church and subjected established views and opinions to a thorough scientific analysis. His lectures are distinguished not only by their strict scientific character, but also by their remarkable elegance of presentation and positive beauty of speech. That’s why they always listened to him with unflagging attention, even if they revealed boring and abstract matters” 30. A number of scientific works by you. V-cha, “which began so brilliantly with his master’s thesis, went in a continuous stream, expanding and expanding until the last days of his life.” 31 About the nature of your initial works you. V-ch writes: “While I was very young, I did not dare to refuse the orders of the “elders”, who had my own pocket benefit in mind, and wrote several articles for Christian Reading and the Church Bulletin. But as soon as he shook off the water a little, like a gosling, he went on strike and decided to write only at his own discretion, that is, in each of his articles to give something novum, that is, either a new thesis, or a new justification for the old one, and for this purpose either not to write at all about what others wrote about or to write against these others, at least correcting and supplementing them. I took these tracks in my very first article: “From the Church History of Egypt: Stories of Dioscorus” (at the end of 1884); I don’t think I left them even once in all subsequent time... 32 and I hope I don’t leave them until the grave.” And indeed, ending with the very last article published in the March book of “Christian Reading” for this year: “What does history know about the beginning of Christianity in Persia”? - You. V-ch never strayed from the path he had planned. Characterizing the internal dignity of your works. Professor I.V. Troitsky, one of the most competent persons in the same specialty, says this: “under every phrase you. One senses a broad, general historical background. So briefly and at the same time so meaningfully and accurately characterize entire theological trends with their sometimes very subtle shades and so concisely and accurately summarize the essence and shades of the opinion of the church fathers... only a scientist who feels like a complete master in his field could.” 33 For the ordinary educated public, the scientific works of you. The questions were extremely difficult and inconvenient. You yourself knew this well. V-h. “An ordinary reader,” he says in the same letter to his friend, shies away from my articles and in the signature: “V. Bolotov” sees an obvious warning for himself...: they are so incomprehensible! But readers of the highest flight (my peers in position and arms) remain so pleased with my works that their reviews are able to satisfy even Tantalus’ pride.” These were, of course, specialist historians and orientalists from all countries. “His work on the history of the ancient Christian Coptic, Ethiopian and Syrian churches... says his colleague at the Academy, prof. P. N. Zhukovich, aroused lively and deep interest among specialists from all countries. The name of V. Bolotov became known in all centers of European church-historical science, although he can be said to have taken measures against the growth of his scientific fame (not one of his Coptic, Ethiopian and Syrian studies was even published in a special edition by the council, in addition to being published in Christian Reading 34. One St. Petersburg Orientalist told this same colleague at the Academy, returning from the recent Paris Congress orientalists, with what curiosity two Italian scientists from St. Petersburg asked him about Professor Bolotov, who dreamed in Paris of seeing in person the one whose scientific works were intimately known to them”... 35. “Unfortunately, the entire long series of his works on Coptic, Ethiopian and Syrian sources, especially the newest works, have not yet become the subject of cumulative special scientific study by Orientalists and church historians. Only a special study of his works, in connection with the general situation of European church-historical science at the current moment, can clearly demonstrate the greatest sensitivity of the late church historian to the living, modern needs of his science (especially in view of the scientific movement so powerful in our days in the field of studying the ancient East) and the positive scientific significance for the general history of the church of his research on the history of non-Greek ancient Christian churches.” 36 In terms of content, your works are scientific and most valuable. The thesis (not counting his master's work) concerns mainly the ancient history of the Coptic, Ethiopian and Syrian Persian churches. The most important of them are the following: I. From the church history of Egypt. Reville and its publications. “Stories of Dioscorus about the Council of Chalcedon” (Chronicles Reading 1884, 11–12; 1885, 1–2); "The Life of Blessed Afu, Bishop of Pemdzhe". (1886, 3–4). “Archimandrite Tavennisiotov Victor at the court of Constantinople in 431.” (1892, 1–2, 5–6), Appendix: “Paravolans?” (1892, 7–8); “The day and year of the martyrdom of St. Evangelist Mark" (1893, 7–8, 11–12). II. A few pages from the church history of Ethiopia. “On the issue of uniting Abyssinia with the Orthodox Church” (1888, 3–4); "Theological Controversies in the Ethiopian Church" (1888, 7–8, 11–12). III. Liberius, Bishop of Rome and the Councils of Sirmium. (1891, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8, 9–10, 11–12); “Sardica or Serdika?” (1891, 5–6); "The Rehabilitation of the Four Documents of 343" (1891, 7–8). IV. Michaelmas. (1892, 11–12); “Traces of the ancient monthly books of local churches” (1893, 1–2). V. From the history of the Syro-Persian Church. "Supurgan" (1899, 1). "Sephakan Waspurakan" (1899, 1.); “The most ancient metropolises in the Persian Church” (1899, 2); “Time of Troubles in the History of the Syro-Persian Church” (1899, 3); “List of Catholicoses of Selevo-Ktisiphon” (1899, 4, 5, 6); “What does history know about the beginning of Christianity in Persia?” (1900.1, 3); "From the era of disputes about Easter at the end of the 2nd century." (1900, 3). VI. Belshazzar and Darius the Mede. Experience in solving an exegetical problem. With two applications: A. Antedatirung or Postdatirung? A controversial issue in Babylonian chronology. B. Name Actiagus (1896, 9–10). In addition to those listed, you. V-chu owns many other articles published in the same “Christian Reading” and “Church Bulletin”. 37 “Another type of scientific work by Vasily Vasilyevich is the consideration of master’s theses and other scientific works. Apparently, there is no reason to give special credit to this kind of work associated with professorship in a higher educational institution. But in your hands. In fact, these works also took on an unusual form: his reviews grew into entire studies, which sometimes opened up new horizons even for the most learned authors. 38 This is, for example, his review of the work of Prof. A.I.S.: “Ancient Christian church writer Lactantius.” When printed, it took about 8 printed sheets. His reviews of other works awarded academic degrees or Makaryev Prizes, for example, the works of Glubokovsky, Samuylov, Kiparisov, Spassky and others, are also complete and informative. “These reviews were given by you. Well, writes his aforementioned colleague, P.N.Zh., a happy opportunity to share with the learned public the results of his deep, comprehensive and completely independent study of the entire system of church historical science... In your reviews. In-cha prof. I. E. Troitsky at one time noted the most important scientific discoveries that found a place in them. Thus, the process of scientific creativity continued with all its might in those of his works, which in themselves called him only for scientific-critical analysis. As for this last one, the reviews are from you. V-cha represents something perfect in the power of thought, and in the subtlety of feeling, and in the expression and vitality of presentation. Critiques of you. One could listen to the song continuously for hours, not only without getting tired, but becoming more and more amazed and delighted by it.” 39 “Scientific research of you. These are of deep interest even regardless of the positive scientific discoveries they contain. They are of deep interest from one methodological point of view, by the very perfection of scientific and technical research techniques... Without taking upon ourselves the characteristics of the late historian’s scientific techniques, we cannot help but note one feature that sharply distinguishes him from the crowd of ordinary specialists. Studying one or another special area of ​​the past life, he considered it necessary to be a specialist in all areas adjacent to it, never confining himself to the narrow framework of his immediate church-historical problem. He thoroughly examined the historical phenomenon under study from all sides, although from this comprehensive examination only the features necessary for proper illumination of the matter were added to the picture he drew. This constant work in areas related to the subject under study made him an excellent specialist in matters of general chronology (here he hardly had any equal in Russia), ancient geography, the history of ancient culture, public and private life, metrology, etc.” 40 “The activity of you. V-cha was not limited to one academic work, one desk-specific scientific work. Our highest church authorities, and partly the highest secular government, resorted to his erudition, his scientific and historical sensitivity and used his talent. By decree of the Holy Synod of December 15, 1892, you. V-ch was appointed clerk in the commission for preliminary clarification of the conditions and requirements that could form the basis of negotiations on the union of the Old Catholics with the Russian Orthodox Church. The commission... received in the person of you. A clerk who could provide all the necessary historical information in full abundance, and in formulating the conditions and requirements of the union, serve the cause with all the strength and flexibility of his incomparable language.” 41 Then you. V-ch was called by the highest church authorities “to take the closest part in the joining of the Syro-Chaldean Nestorians to the Orthodox Church on March 25, 1898. It was necessary to find out under what conditions and by what church rite their canonical reunification with the Orthodox Church should take place, and also to translate the necessary confessional formulas, etc., into the language of those joining. Here, in this unusual in our times, joining the Orthodox Church of the remnant of the heresy of long-past centuries, your truly historical, deeply scientific view could not have been more useful. "On the church canonical and vital relations of the Orthodox Ecumenical Church of the 5th and subsequent centuries, and his rare knowledge of Eastern languages." 42 In the last year of your life, you. V-ch was appointed by the Holy Synod as a delegate from the spiritual department to a special commission formed under the astronomical society, chaired by Professor S.P. Glasenap, on the issue of harmonizing our old style with the new one adopted in Western Europe. As an incomparable expert on church history and closely related issues of general chronology, you. V-ch expressed his authoritative judgment here: according to his research, it turns out that in the decrees of the Council of Nicaea (325) there is no such rule at all, according to which the spring equinox should forever fall on March 21. This decree was only attributed to the Council of Nicaea to justify the Paschal, rather than calendar, reform carried out by Pope Gregory XIII, which required the addition of 12 days, not 10. 43 One of the participants in this commission, who did not know you personally until then. Here, too, who heard him only for the first time, describes his impression of his erudition in this way. “There were about twelve people present in the meeting... Next to me sat a man of short stature, without a beard or mustache, with a yellow complexion, sunken cheeks and smoothed black hair. The discussion of various issues went on as usual. My neighbor took almost no part in the debate. But one of those present raised the question: should it not be possible to establish the year of the Nativity of Christ scientifically, and so accurately that it could be said that so many days have passed from the era of the Nativity of Christ to the present moment. “Therefore, perhaps Vasily Vasilyevich will tell us something,” the chairman turned with a kind smile to the man sitting next to me. My neighbor perked up. His neck stretched out, his black eyes sparkled. – I must say that, in my opinion, it is better to exclude the year of the Nativity from the list of those eras on which the commission can choose. Scientifically, the year of the Nativity of Christ, even just the year, not only the month and day, is impossible to establish. It is impossible to present such evidence in favor of one or another date of the Nativity of Christ that can withstand the test of scientific criticism. A number of unknowns make this problem unsolvable. These X's... And then, as if from a cornucopia, quotes, numbers, dates, comparisons, juxtapositions, refutations rained down... -Who is this? I asked, completely amazed, my other neighbor. – Professor of church history at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Bolotov. I no longer took my eyes off the professor’s yellow face, which was completely transformed by scientific inspiration. A brilliant lecture – the improvisation continued with unflagging interest. It was as if Larousse’s huge, famous dictionary opened up and spoke in a human voice. The listeners were stunned. It was hardly believed that human memory is capable of preserving such a mass of learning and laying it out at the first request, with crystalline clarity” 44. This was at the second meeting of the Commission, on May 17, (the first in which Bolotov was present). In subsequent meetings (for example, on May 31, just 4 days after he received the telegram that “stunned” him about the death of his mother, that is, when his mind was still under the depressing influence of this news), he “showed the same phenomenal scholarship on a whole range of issues! Entire dissertations by you were included in the appendices to the “Resolutions” of the commission. V-cha Bolotov.” 45 Despite your colossal scholarship and your enormous scientific merits, you. V-ch had an extremely modest opinion about them and did not seek fame, honors, or academic degrees. The latter somehow, against his will and desire, walked towards him, arousing even his surprise with their rapid movement, unusual for the educational institution in which he served. In his letters to friends, touching on this issue, he either refutes the high opinions of others about his merits, or explains his successes by the favor of his superiors, or simply by his lucky star. So, when his friend at the Academy, M., once told him that the entire 36th year was convinced that he would remain his representative at the Academy, he recognized such a conviction as groundless, because there was no hint of a free academic department at the time when there was talk about it! When I.V. Cheltsov suddenly died, this loss caused nothing but sincere regret in him. “Not in a single dungeon of my soul speaks of you. In the first place, there was no suggestion (or even just a wish: “oh, if only”...) that this was my line. Like a perfect gentle lamb, I thought and even wrote to someone that the chair of church history would be occupied either by A. I. S. (the first candidate in the 33rd year, who graduated from the Academy in 1876) or Mikhail Vas. Cheltsov, the brother of the deceased, who had already written a master’s thesis to Professor I.V. Troitsky and had to graduate from the course in 1878. But I didn’t have one... in March 1878, a candidate’s thesis was submitted, so it would be stupid of me to even dream about this department!” “My career,” he says in another place, took place with the most favorable wind. Being an “associate professor” for 14 years is in the traditions of our Academy. Meanwhile, since October 1885 I have already been extraordinarius. My competitor was the (above-mentioned) A.I.S (from whom I listened to lectures on the Latin language in 1877-78, as a student, and took an exam (as an assistant under V.I. Modestov) in 1878). The situation is delicate, and it is not surprising that the Council kept postponing the choice between us (from the end of May to the end of October). But the relationship between me and S... turned out to be unspoiled. And for moral reassurance I could say to myself that I had not dreamed of such a quick promotion to extraordinary status and that I was innocent and bowed at least an inch below what my respect for the person to whom I was bowing prescribed. – By the will of fate, I am also connected with A.I.S. in my doctoral degree... On Easter 1896 we come to the Most Reverend Metropolitan to receive Christ. He congratulates S... on her doctorate and adds: “I’m very glad that this time it happened so quickly. V.V. Bolotov helped a lot, whose review seems to be as great as the dissertation itself.” This opinion of the Synod was not slow to be taken advantage of by persons who were favorable to me, and at their head was my venerable teacher, I. E. Troitsky. He submitted to the Council a review of all my scientific works and offered me, for their entirety, already awarded for them (again on the basis of his review of them) the title of “corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences” and the degree of “Doctor of Church History.” At a meeting on May 21, the Council decided to petition the Holy Synod about this. On July 19, the Holy Synod confirmed me in this degree. A Rev. The rector was so kind that, without making a special (generally accepted, official) message about the “approval” in the Council, he brought this to the attention of the Soviets, making his proposal “to elect d.ts. And. e. hord. prof. V.V. Bolotov for residency, which opened after the retirement of the honored prof. A. L. Katansky. As soon as it happens. Thus, I am, so to speak, a doctor by chance, who stirred the waters in this direction because circumstances forced me to write such a review.” Finally, in another letter (1899), talking about what he and prof. V.S.S. in the Council of the Academy proposed to elect Prof. S.A.S... writes: “what will happen...? Doctorate - for 28 years of service. In addition to Rev. Rector and T.V.B... all members of the Council are students of the doctoral student. The case is on the topic: “who (like the person writing these lines) is happy, and who is lucky.” And most importantly: S.A.S.’s doctoral dissertation was presented back in 1888!”… About your attitude. The desire for scientific degrees and honors is beautifully and deeply expressed in the article of his friend, prof. P. N. Zhukovich, why can’t we deny ourselves the pleasure of citing this place: “V. V. Bolotov, extraordinary prof. Since October 24, 1885, he himself has not sought a doctorate. And what could a doctorate degree add to his scientific fame? And without this degree, he had long been, both for the Academy and for all scientific circles, as if he were a born doctor! But the doctorate itself was somehow diminished by the fact that you did not have it. V-ch"... And he, as we already know from your own words. V-cha, received it, according to the proposal of Prof. I. E. Troitsky, "who expressed the general opinion and desire of all members of the Academic Council" ... 46 The scientific significance of your scientific works. The importance in the history of Russian church-historical and theological thought is enormous and indisputable. Unfortunately, at the present time it is not yet possible to give even a faint image of him, for the reasons that we indicated in the preface, and also because many of his works have not yet been published and are in manuscripts. Therefore, to start talking at the present time, as if in reproach to him, about “the special tasks of these works, about the themes of individual, scientific works that seem to remain without a clear, defined connection with each other” 47 would be extremely presumptuous, especially for a non-specialist. 48 Let us limit ourselves to just recalling the words of Prof. P. N. Zhukovich, that despite the fact that “the path of scientific life is you. “I stopped in the middle,” he “has done as much for science as a rare scientist would be able to do throughout even a very long life.” 49 VI. Vasily Vasilievich is a private person This was the official you. V-h, as a scientist and professor at a higher educational institution. But every person, in addition to official relationships and responsibilities, has other, non-official ones - to family, friends, homeland, certain tastes and habits, etc. All this, taken together, characterizes a person no less, and sometimes even more, than his social activities. From the above excerpts from his letters, we already know something about him as a person. Now we have to say as much as possible about this. And above all, about his relationship with his mother. If we allow ourselves some hyperbole, we can say that he almost never for a minute forgot this creature dear to him - and that “dear point on the globe” where she lived. He wrote letters to her almost every month and, in addition, always for Easter, Christmas and New Year, for the day of her angel and for the church holidays of the local Krovotyn church (November 21, May 1 and July 20). These letters are filled with ardent love for their parent and heartfelt concern for everything concerning her needs. He talks in them about all sorts of his affairs and his acquaintances, gives advice and instructions, asks not to be bored when separated from him, sends her, and through her to other people, various gifts, and lately he has been filled with special concern for her on the occasion of her illness. To prove what has been said, we present several noteworthy excerpts from them. "St. Petersburg. February 13, 1890, Tuesday. Be healthy, my dear, dear mother M.I. I congratulate you on the upcoming fast and thank you sincerely for your letter of February 1... I am sincerely glad that what was sent gave you pleasure. I sent you and myself the full circle of the twelve holidays almost unexpectedly. In January I had to read an article by our professor P. about these icons, published by the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, that they were mostly copied from ancient Greek icons. I already told you that at the gate to the Nevsky Lavra on the left there is now a bookshop of the Brotherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I went there to buy Trinity leaves, and asked, just in case, if they also had Trinity oleographs? - They say. All holidays are not on one board; but there is a separate one. I reconsidered; I see that the drawing is generally extremely correct and I decided to send them to you. And since the middle icon here is “The Descent of Christ into Hell,” I took the 14th “Resurrection” separately, especially since it is written as correctly as we generally cannot write. (Christ emerges (not flies) from the tomb”). Next you. V-ch gives the mother detailed instructions on how to arrange these icons and insert them into a special frame, even enclosing an exact drawing of it. 50 In one of his letters from 1892, Fr. speaks extremely warmly about joining the Academy as its head. Archimandrite Boris, - about the friendliness of His Eminence. Palladium and the latter’s attention to him personally, when introducing the academic corporation as its new top boss... In a letter dated 1895, he warns his mother against rumors about the dangers of floods in St. Petersburg: “If rumors about troubles from floods in St. Petersburg reach Kravotyn, then you know that the Lavra and Maly Nevsky are the most elevated places in St. Petersburg, protected from floods by nature itself.” One day you. For some reason, he decided to count how many steps from his apartment (Nevsky 182. No. 5) to the Academy and he writes to his mother: “it’s now 1680, then 1700. It will be up to 469 fathoms. Town! And close, but almost a mile away. It is not for nothing that in a letter to me one Kiev professor, who was planning to visit me again when he was in St. Petersburg and did not, explains: “Well, your distances are St. Petersburg! When you leave, you think about doing five things, you barely have time to finish two, and the day is over: everything is spent on moving.” In a letter dated 1895, he writes: “with all my heart I wish you, dear mother, all the best from the Lord, mental and physical. Don't be sad or bored. And if you think about the past, then remember it not to “collect” all sorts of grief for yourself.” In a letter dated l896 talks about his attitude towards the expedition that set off on March 25 from St. Petersburg to Abyssinia, in the form of a small hospital. “It wasn’t without touching on me... The Abyssinian hierodeacon Gabra-Krystos appeared and told me that the guardsman Hussar Bulatovich, who was going to Abyssinia, wanted to see me. It turned out to be a question: what kind of grammar and lexicon of the Amharic language could I get? He promised to write him the titles. As soon as he came to his home, Hieromonk A. G. appeared, seconded as a priest on this expedition, - at the behest of V. M., so to speak, for instructions to me on how he should behave, and what to observe in Abyssinia... He promised to write him some questions and instructions and wrote them out during all his free time from service on Holy Saturday. After G. I also had to admit a medical student, who also came to me for help regarding grammar and vocabulary” 51 . In letters to you. Among other things, his approach to his mother is distinguished by his extraordinary delicacy, expressed in a wide variety of ways. So, writing to his godmother in 1899 on the day of the angel of his mother, during her last illness, he doubts whether it is possible to convey this congratulation to her, so as not to bother her with the memory of better days, when she could read his congratulation with joy and personally. He writes: “I send congratulations through your prudent medium, fearing that perhaps the patient’s condition is such that any reminders to her that she is the birthday girl will only unnecessarily disturb her. And you may consider it best to leave her alone."... Another time, in conversations with her mother, she started talking about her spiritual will, apparently extremely burdened by the thought of it; you. After reading it, he did not dare to tell her that it still needed to be rewritten, and to leave room for witnesses. His words were as follows: “I don’t know whether mother’s spiritual will, written by her hand, survived. Despite the fact that she herself decided to write it, and she herself showed it to me when she made a note about the image of the Presentation - the thought of the spiritual weighed on her so much that it was as if she was digging her own grave. And I did not dare tell her that she needed to rewrite this spiritual one on a sheet of paper and leave a place for the witnesses to sign it. After your mother, those closest to you. The first persons were his friends from his homeland, school, seminary and academy. 52 In dealing with them, he was also extremely delicate, always calling everyone “You,” by name and patronymic, and never changing this rule. He corresponded with many, but not with everyone, and, moreover, from time to time incorrectly: sometimes not rarely, sometimes he stopped completely, sometimes without writing for a long time, he suddenly remembered and wrote enormous messages, almost an entire autobiography. The reasons for this are very clear: this is a significant and constantly changing difference in social status with many of them and, consequently, the lack of suitable material for the exchange of thoughts, and most importantly, his extreme preoccupation with his scientific works, which did not allow him to accurately conduct even business correspondence with his colleagues in other academies... Therefore, some of his friends, bearing in mind how precious every hour of his time was to him, tried not to burden him with correspondence on unimportant matters. So, writing to his mother, regarding a letter from one Ostashkovets, to which he, due to lack of time, cannot give an answer, he adds: “I even have business letters to colleagues at other Academies waiting in turn for months at a time; and with good friends, to whom I am cordially disposed, I do not correspond at all (you only need to remember NN, NN, NN), due to lack of leisure.” In St. Petersburg you. V-ch lived first in Perekupny Lane, Gulina village, No. 6, and then in two apartments on Nevsky, (No. 164 and 182) and remained in the last of them until his death. The first apartment was one room on the 5th floor, 11 steps long and 6 wide,” with one large window. The apartment included a three-course meal, a servant, a supply of samovars, and for all this he paid 25 rubles. per month. On Nevsky (No. 164) the apartment was more spacious (2 rooms and an entrance hall), but also in the courtyard and on the 3rd or 4th floor. The decoration of the apartment was very modest: in the living room there was his desk, littered with notebooks and a lot of books in all kinds of languages, a sofa and a small number of chairs; in another room there were shelves with books - your own library. Whew. This was his only wealth, the acquisition of which he spared no expense in: “during 18 years of my service,” he writes in 1897, he accumulated a fairly decent library... When the bulk of it was moved to a new (only the third in St. Petersburg) apartment this year, the backbones of the porters determined its weight to be approximately 80 pounds. And in collecting books I was lucky, like a blind man: I came across (and at a relatively cheap price) such ermines that hardly appear on the world market even in 20 years. In terms of books, I’m used to living as a gentleman, spoiled by luxury.” He liked to bind the most valuable books with colored spines. A seminary student and a student at the Academy. V-ch did not often go on vacation, due to lack of funds, but when he became a professor, he went there almost every summer. How he spent his time here - let an eyewitness, his friend Mikhail Aleksandrovich, whose literary abilities you appreciate, tell us better. I admired him more than once. 53 According to him, the way of life here is you. V-cha was “highly instructive and amazing in its simplicity. The seeds of faith, love, humility, kindness, truth and all Christian virtues, sown by his rare material in his childish, kind and sympathetic heart, bore abundant fruits, difficult to imitate and worthy of surprise.” With your “dear”, “dear” mother. V-ch attended every service, on Sundays and holidays, in his village church. (Vas. V-ch himself did not like to sing, and in church he stood either in the altar, or on the left choir when there were no singers, or in a distant corner of the church). In addition, he annually participated in the procession of the cross, which took place on July 12 from their village church to the chapel of the Three-Handed One, located 3 miles from the village, halfway to the Nilova hermitage. (On July 12, up to 5,000 pilgrims from Ostashkov and nearby villages and parishes gather here). Then you. In the month of August, before going to school and serving at the Academy, he used to go with his mother to the Nilova Hermitage to venerate the relics of the Pleasant. They left the village here earlier in order to be in time for the start of the late liturgy. Despite the duration of the service 54 You. V-ch stood through the entire liturgy and listened to the prayer service of St. Nilu, after which he went, being a student and professor at the Academy, to the rector, Fr. Archimandrite Arseny to receive a blessing and for a conversation 55. Spiritual life of Archimandrite. Arsenia could not help but influence your soul. V-cha, who knew him from childhood and received his blessing at every meeting. Conversation with you. In-cha with Fr. archimandrite dragged on for 1–2 hours. from noon to evening, and the hospitable host, intoxicated by the sweet speeches of a rare, dear guest and irreplaceable interlocutor, when he was already a professor, ordered him to be taken back in a carriage or carriage to Kravotyn. Once I visited you myself. In-cha in his native and wretched hut, driving up to it on a trio of blacks, in a beautiful, clear harness. Except for the Nile Desert. Well, I never went anywhere during the holidays. However, one day he visited me, his friend in the village. Perevoloka, in my mother’s house and spent 2 nights on August 12 and 13, 1878. Here he stood in our church for Matins and Liturgy on Sunday. This time, for some reason, verse 5, chapter 21, stuck in his memory. the Gospel of John read on that day: “Children, what can you eat?” - which served as the reason for him to write me a letter dated October 31 of the same year... In my village, he walked along the fields and shores of Lake Seliger, admiring the ring-shaped arrangement of villages along its shores. His mother’s dilapidated house (no longer existing), with two windows on the front side, stood next to the local priest’s house, opposite the north-western corner of the church fence, with the facade to the west. Inside it contained a space 9 arshins long and 8 arshins wide; two windows faced west, the other two faced north, onto the village street. The decoration of this limited space, which remained unchanged throughout your entire life. Well, it was like this: along the entire length of the western wall there was a bench that was not wide, unpainted and did not move from its place; near the middle of it and against the wall between two windows, there was an old oak table with two drawers; it was always covered with a canvas tablecloth, with flowers and patterns - the work of local craftswomen; There were several stools and two heavy chairs near the table. The hostess and her “son” usually sat on this furniture, and in such a way that Marya Ivanovna always sat on the stool, and the “son” opposite her, on the bench. If there was a guest or guests, then they took the places of honor on the bench, and you. V-ch sat on a stool next to his mother. In the front corner, under the shrine, there was another table on which lay the books of the hostess and her son; it was also his work table. A tea cabinet, an antique clock - friends of M.I.'s loneliness, and her curtained bed, in the corner by the front door - made up the rest of the furnishings and decoration of the home in which our colossus of knowledge and thought - You - grew up and lived. V-h. During the summer holidays you. In the morning he got up at 7 - 8 o'clock in the morning and went to swim at Lake Seliger, a mile from the village, in one convenient, not deep and sandy place; he did not know how to swim or dive and must have been afraid, remembering the death of his father. Towards the place of his bathing, from his footprints, by the end of the holidays, a path was formed, partly running through sand, partly through juniper and pine trees. After bathing, tea began, which his mother prepared for his arrival from bathing, and then reading, written work in different languages, conversations and walking around the room, as a form of relaxation. Speaking of drinks. Studying at the school you. He drank raw or boiled water, but did not drink tea due to lack of funds; at the seminary he drank exclusively tea, and at the academy, when he was a student, when he became a professor, he also began to drink coffee and chocolate, which he prepared himself. I dined you. In the time interval between 12 and 2 o’clock, depending on when lunch was in time at Marya Ivanovna’s; after lunch he took a walk around the village or in the field, or played checkers with a guest, always remaining a winner. Walks you. Mostly he liked to do things with a friend or a guest, and they were distant (2 - 3 miles each way) and long. At this time, speeches flowed from his honeyed lips in an inexhaustible stream, touching on the most diverse aspects of academic and social life. When meeting peasants, he always greeted them, and sometimes talked with those he knew better, but never with women, having no sympathy for them at all. After the walk - evening tea and the most pleasant conversations. “I will never forget those evenings,” says Mikhail Alexandrovich, in which he, while still a student and then an associate professor at the Academy, told me for hours at a time, without stopping, the books they had read to him, walking around the room with his face beaming with delight, at the sight of the pleasant and inspiring impression he made on his listeners.” He knew Russian history and archaeological research about it perfectly; He knew very well the life of Western peoples and often told a lot about it. Sometimes he was carried away by conversations about discoveries in astronomy: the stellar world and the laws governing it, he knew just as well as all other areas of knowledge, 56 even ending with the most ordinary, everyday information, never expressing anything that smacked of inexperience or naivety, as often happens with other great and not great people... He sometimes, but very rarely, wrote serious, full of interest and fascinating stories, so as not to to confuse the weak spirit of his listeners, mixed them with stories about the naive errors of foreign theologians - deniers who looked at miracles in church history from a natural point of view... One fine morning in 1880, he read by heart the decrees of St. the fathers of the 1st Ecumenical Council and the letters signed by them listing the names and titles of the fathers, first in Greek and then in Russian... I liked to recall some paragraphs of our civil laws and contrast with them unforeseen phenomena, explaining this by the changes that were taking place in the structure of social life. He told me how he became acquainted with the Abyssinian language, as well as with the literature and history of this people. This dates back to the early 80s. A certain Ashinov, a volunteer among the Cossack officers, came to St. Petersburg from Abyssinia, who lived for several years at the court of the Negus and well studied the language, morals, customs and the whole life of this people. You. He also showed me his portrait - an engraving from some magazine. Ashinov brought with him several Abyssinian letters and visited your apartment several times. V-cha; They talked with each other for a long time about subjects that interested them, and the result of these conversations was the composition of you in “Christian Reading”. Dissertation on the history of the Abyssinian Church. You. V-ch also read the Koran and told me a lot about the beliefs of the Mohammedans. Generally you. He was interested in everything, he was interested in everything, except for newspapers, to which, as mentioned above, he had no particular passion, and which he took up only out of “nothing to do” 57... But there were almost no such free minutes in his life, even during the holidays: if his hands were not working (I mean small essays, notes, mathematical calculations, of which there were many in his mother’s house), then his mind was creating plans for future work... How many pleasant, useful and instructive things I learned from conversations with this great learned man, whom I will never have to meet anywhere else, exclaims his friend M.A., who tells us about this, with obvious heartfelt sorrow! In moments of mental relaxation you. V-ch helped his mother in her household chores: he went to the lake with a bucket to fetch water (before joining the service), warmed the samovar in the entryway and served it on the table, prepared tea and tea utensils, set the table for dinner, opened and closed the chimney, for which he climbed the stairs in the entryway to the attic. He never refused anything when he was free, but on the contrary, he even tried to be useful to us all. When he was busy with his work, his mother never distracted him from it. He devoted most of the evenings to studies, and sometimes even the afternoons, when there were many of them. These were mostly his regular academic works, composing lectures, reviews of essays submitted to him for consideration for academic degrees, preparing for debates, reading, extracts and analysis of the latest foreign books, which he always brought with him from St. Petersburg. Among these books were: Turkish, Arabic, Syrian, Coptic, as well as copies from Egyptian hieroglyphs, from Babylonian cylinders, which he showed and explained to his friends... On his window he always had a Catholic missal, in 32, which you. I knew it verbatim by heart... “The years 1877 and 1879 were the most dear to me,” says Mikhail Alexandrovich, according to my relations and correspondence with you. In-cha with me and my frequent stays in his mother’s house, where I felt like my own person. During one of these stays... I, busy thinking about what would happen to him after the death of his mother, allowed myself to ask him: would he not follow the example of other scientists who were not inclined towards married life by accepting monasticism? “No, no! I haven’t thought and I don’t think so,” Vas answered. First of all, I started talking about monasticism and what it was like in the first centuries of Christianity... Since 1880, my meetings and correspondence with you. What became less common: we diverged on the path of life: he rose in the official field, delving into the depths and secrets of science, and I, having gotten married, bowed down more and more, starting a family and in the end, after 10 years of zemstvo and city teaching life, I became completely “poor”... Removed from Kravotyn by a distance of 24 versts, along a straight path, and Separated in two places by moving across Lake Seliger, busy with housekeeping and official duties, I hardly found the opportunity for myself to go to see you even once during the holidays and spend at least a few hours with him in a pleasant conversation. In the last years of my meetings with him, I could not stay overnight with him... due to the lack of premises, as a result of which even the owner himself, a famous scientist, slept in the hallway behind a curtain!... Conversations with you. Every year the questions became more serious, shorter, more meaningful and more difficult for us to perceive. At this time, his jokes, as a highly learned professor, were less frequent and the guest’s slips and mistakes often cost him dearly... He was an enemy of intrigues, guile, deception, lies, quarrels and all sorts of troubles and a great and strong preacher of peace, love, truth, all goodness and condescension for the shortcomings of others 58. With the local priest of the village of Kravotyni, Fr. N. M. V-m, Vas. V-ch was on the most friendly terms; the latter highly valued this attention and, for his part, repaid him with the same ardent devotion. 59 This father visited you almost every day. In the summer, when he was visiting his mother’s house in the summer, he talked with him and their conversations often dragged on until late at night. Testimony of this priest, whose acquaintance with you. What began in 1892, have the meaning that they relate to the characteristics of your personality. V-cha in the very last years of his life and thus serve as a kind of completion of it. They confirm and repeat everything said above by M. A-ch, but in addition to this they also contain something new, complementing what could be observed in the last years of his life. According to him, the time in the village of Kravotyni is Vas. He spent all his time reading the book. He read more German books... During one of his vacations, he took up exclusively reading Lactantius, published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was preparing to write a review of Prof. Sadova. He helped his mother with the housework: he set up the samovar and prepared lunch, which consisted of eggs, milk porridge and a cup of chocolate or coffee. And in the last year of 1898, he even had to take care of his sick mother. Every three days I was busy calculating the true half-day for the village of Kravotyni. He was very simple in handling, although he was distinguished by some oddities. “Despite all my requests,” says Father N.M., to visit me, he expressed himself like this: “excuse me: it’s my custom to come to me at any time, but I can’t,” and indeed, he kept his word. In Kravotyn he visited almost no one. He was like this until 1898, but this year (he was not in the village during the 1899 vacation) he was remarkably opposite and very often and without any call he came and sat in my house for quite a long time. How can we explain this?... I don’t know”... It seems to us that the reason for this was that you. From this year and even earlier, he no longer looked at everything earthly with earthly eyes: previously, his penchant for solitude and avoidance of female society could still force him to shy away from appearing in a society of little familiar faces, and even more noisy, now, the illness of his mother, already a respectable old woman, 73 years old, and his own health, significantly broken by labor, 60 could not help but lead him to think about the closeness, both for his mother and for himself, of that fateful moment before which all earthly sympathies and antipathies turn pale... Anticipating the imminent death of his mother and anticipating his own, his view of worldly affairs and people expanded, became spiritualized and involuntarily transformed... “Our conversation,” the priest continues, was conducted positively about everything, even touching on agriculture, where you are. V-ch also expressed his usual weighty word. Once we talked about the entrance exams at the Academy... On this occasion, he expressed his opinion that a seminarian should enter the Academy with a full command of ancient languages, and especially Greek. The thing in exams should be like this: leave grammar and everything else aside, and give the student a Greek book, make him read a page of text, and then ask him to convey the content of what he read. Whoever does this can be freely enrolled in the ranks of students, but otherwise not. He also expressed the idea that everyone who completed a course at the seminary, instead of a Bible in Slavic, should be given a New Testament in Greek, or even a service book. You can buy a Slavic book everywhere, but the same cannot be said about a Greek book. A Greek book like this would be of great interest to those who have completed the course.”… But mainly he talked about Academic affairs: he spoke in detail about the receipt of an academic degree by one person or another, about colloquia, about certain assumptions in the future of the Academy Council and his own. Extremely characteristic and rich in life details is in his broadcast, for example, the story about the replacement of the formerly vacant department of the Greek language at the Academy by his proposed candidate N, contrary to the candidacy of another person N... Unfortunately, for many reasons, this story, as well as others related to academic affairs, cannot yet be published at the present time. During walks with peasants he met, he greeted them warmly, sometimes stopping and talking. The peasants loved him very much, but while he was alive, they still did not clearly realize what a great man they had the good fortune to talk with... And only now, when he was gone, and when the “Wreath” was spread among them on his grave, they realized what kind of person they had lost... Now many, according to the testimony of the same priest N.M., read this “Wreath” with tears in their eyes. From eyewitness accounts we also know that you. During this period of time, V-ch was especially friendly with the boys - fellow villagers, students of the Ostashkovsky Theological School. Having met one or the other of them during a walk, he would sit him down next to him and ask him for a long time about studying at the Ostashkovsky Theological School, where he himself studied and spent his childhood years. “Yes,” he told one of them, the memories of childhood and life at school make a strong impression on me - they are very pleasant to me.” Sometimes he will start telling how he studied at this school and how difficult it was to study and live at that time: “they used to walk around in bast shoes,” he once remarked. Having talked enough, he will shake his hand to his interlocutor and say: “goodbye, and I’ll read a little more, it’s an interesting book!” The village boys loved him very much, brought him, and when he was not there, his mother, apples, mushrooms, etc. and for all this there were you. In what way they are generously rewarded. His kind heart and generous hand are also known to our seminarians - Ostashkovites. Not very long ago, it seems in 1898, they happened to go home at the same time as some gentleman, whom they took for a merchant and did not pay any attention to him. And he, too, did not speak to them on the way, but only occasionally glanced in their direction. It turned out that they did not have enough money to continue the journey: they began to consult among themselves which of them should deny themselves what in order to raise capital to continue the journey. You. V-ch heard all this, went up to them and, having learned how much money they were missing, took it out and gave it to them. Only then did they find out who was traveling with them... This priest, and also your godmother. V-cha - E.I.K. have been intermediaries between you for the last two years. What is his sick matter, in the letters to which you. V-ch is filled with deep gratitude for all their care and concern for his mother during her 18-month illness, and after her death - for the orders and arrangement of her earthly affairs. 61 VII. Vasily Vasilyevich’s illness, the last days of his life and death Despite the significant difference in years, you. V-ch outlived his mother by only 10½ months. Undoubtedly, the death of the latter accelerated the course of his own illness, which developed gradually and began a very long time ago. Its beginning undoubtedly dates back to the era of his most intensive scientific work. Back in 1896, he had to spend the summer in St. Petersburg, because the first signs of illness appeared - as a consequence of a sedentary life - a leg tumor, which forced him to seek the help of the hospital physician Baikov. “If I had a tumor,” Vas himself writes. B-h, on both legs, then my case would be bad. But on one leg - nothing. Illness from an external cause (now I myself have realized - Baikov could only predict that this could be a consequence of the habit of crossing one's legs over one another - that this is from my custom - when I write - sometimes holding 15 pounds of books on my left leg under the pressure of my left elbow). But in any case, we couldn’t do without Latin cuisine. I brought 3 recipes. You need to smear it with iodine with some other composition. And most importantly - a few days of rest. My leg cannot stand the cold, and especially cold water. How her treatment goes in the coming week will determine my vacation. In any case, for the second time in a century we have to celebrate the Academic holiday on June 30 in St. Petersburg and be in the Academic Church.” In 1897, he wrote to his friend: “My health, compared with others like me, is quite tolerable; at least the fact that I still remain on the earth’s surface, whereas judging by the fact that I have neglected all hygiene requirements for so long, I could justifiably go ad patres.” And this is followed by the above words about rheumatism, stomach disease and a corpse-like physiognomy... Whether he thought that his strength would still be enough to bear the full weight of the work and assignments he had taken on himself and others placed on him, or whether he wanted to “go with the flow” here, as in other equally important circumstances of his life, is difficult to decide, but only the disease, chronic inflammation of the kidneys (Nephritis), complicated by hemorrhoidal suffering, was doing its job and was quickly approaching the stage when all medical help was already powerless. Что он не берегся и не принимал своевременных мер к своему излечению исключительно потому, что был обременен трудами, которым он всецело посвятил свою жизнь, – это бесспорно. Бесспорно и то, что в отношении своего здоровья, после смерти матери, он положился всецело на волю Провидения. «Во время зимы (1899 года), пишет он, 1899 г., мне не раз приходилось прихварывать, и – с ужасом думать: что если матушка, в ее беспомощной старости, да переживет меня? Теперь снял Господь этот камень с сердца, и когда – чрез годы или через месяцы – повелит и мне идти «в путь всея земли», Его святая воля… Пока время тянулось с делами академическими. Развязавшись с ними… пришлось, по настояниям многих, подумать и о своем лечении. Но в это глухое время не легко добыть в Петербурге доктора с именем сколько-нибудь известным. I didn’t find Professor Sirotinin either on the 14th or on the 21st. Only today could I consult with him and determine how I would have to carry out the vacation. К моему удивлению, моей болезни очень серьёзною не считает; только моя печень обогнала мои годы жизни лет на шесть; in terms of liver, I should consider myself a person who has already exceeded 50. But the diet on which I am put is such that it does not let me leave the pharmacy: drink 2 half glasses of warm Ems mineral waters every day. And this diet should continue without interruption for 6 weeks in the most favorable case. Очевидно это не позволит мне в нынешнем году отлучиться в Кравотынь». Your non-arrival. Going on vacation in the summer of 1899 greatly alarmed his friends, causing them to fear for his health. Two of them were in a hurry with an invitation to visit and spend the summer with them this year. And with what sadness he answers one of them: “You can’t imagine that your speech about “next year” makes me almost smile... Obviously you have no idea what a wreck I have become and in what a distant fog I see even the ends of the months, not like the next year!” Last Lent felt especially difficult, and more than once, leaving the classroom on Friday, I asked myself the question, was this the last time I dragged my feet to the Academy? My health is definitely going downhill. The palliative “improvements” only last for a few weeks... The concoction with Ems water from Kranchen-Brunnen seemed to correct me a little, but now I have to repeat this course again... Things... are not decreasing: undoubtedly they are going uphill!... And so it’s better to remain silent about the next year! Finally, exactly three months (1900) before his death, he writes: “I am very sorry for your concern about me... my health, although not very important - rheumatism does not like to give either rest or time - still allows me to drag my feet and write letters. But both before Christmas and before the New Year, correspondence with everyone was prevented by a flurry of business; the Christmas time allotted for correspondence with you smiled because an emergency (not at all expected: a case with a short order was sent: either this evening or tomorrow morning) report from V.M. was required... In a word, my exclusively privileged position is sometimes reflected in inconveniences... I wish you good health - this benefit that a person begins to truly appreciate only when it is lost!... This was his last a word to people close to him, in his homeland!… March 22 of this year to you. V-ch was no longer able to move and went to bed. But even when he was in bed, he could not abandon his studies: “while lying in bed, he read and looked through newly received publications on the church history of Egypt and other scientific novelties that had just been sent to him from abroad. Present with him in the last days and minutes of his life, his colleague at the Academy and friend Prof. Ivan Savvich Palmov observed his activities not only on March 22, but even on March 23, therefore, on the eve and on the very day of your departure. To the hospital of the Holy Cross Community. And going to the hospital, he took with him several books, which he, however, did not manage to read... Transfer to the hospital you. He undertook on the advice of friends, and with the blessing of the bishop - the metropolitan, where, thanks to the attention of the chairman of the community council, comrade chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod V. K. Sabler, the patient was provided with all kinds of comforts and the most caring care... But just three days after being admitted to the hospital, the patient developed epileptic seizures, which terribly weakened his already broken body. The assembled consultation of medical forces identified the onset of an acute period of illness, with which medicine was powerless to fight. The patient’s strength was weakening... “The Metropolitan, His Eminence Rector of the Academy, V.K. Sabler, many colleagues and close professional acquaintances visited him in the hospital, prayerfully wishing him recovery.” But alas! The fatal end was approaching... True, on the eve of death, on April 4, he felt better, but on the 5th his situation became completely grave. His friends, prof., were immediately notified. P. N. Zhukovich and I. S. Palmov hurriedly came to the hospital. “The patient received the Holy Mysteries on this day (for the third time during his illness); local hospital chaplain Fr. A.P. Vasiliev admonished him with a prayer for the exodus of his soul. After this, the patient seemed to come to life and recognized the colleagues and friends who had come to him.” Soon his other colleagues arrived at the hospital. Your physical strength. He became increasingly weaker... His consciousness either disappeared or reappeared, and at these moments he tried to speak, despite the fact that the onset of pulmonary edema greatly prevented him from doing so. Three hours before his death, he uttered the following significant words: “How beautiful are the dying minutes!” And an hour later he said: “I’m dying”! Despite severe physical suffering, he endured them with remarkable patience, all the time continuing to maintain a cheerful mood and did not stop uttering, albeit with difficulty, individual words and expressions, of which one could only make out: “I’m going to the cross,” “Christ is coming,” “God is coming,” and a few more words in languages ​​​​incomprehensible to those present.” “Apparently, the patient’s thoughts were still working, but the organ of speech was difficult... Only a quarter of an hour before death, the patient stopped speaking, and after that, quietly calmly, without any agony, he began to fall asleep, gradually closing his eyes and folding his hands over his chest... It was between 7 and 7:10 pm in the evening, April 5, during the all-night vigil on Maundy Thursday. 62 The funeral of Vasily Vasilyevich, which took place on Great Saturday, April 8, after the divine liturgy performed by the Most Reverend, was unusually solemn and deeply touching. Boris, rector of the Academy. Not only the entire Academic family of the present day gathered in the church, but also many representatives of previous generations of Academic students of the late professor, as well as all his other admirers, connected with him by ties of deep love and scientific kinship. During the liturgy and funeral service, many speeches were made so heartfelt and sincere, filled with both deep melancholy and joyful pride for the common glory in the person of the famous deceased, that, as P.N.Zh. rightly put it, I wanted to listen to them more and more... They were published in full in the Church Bulletin, (No. 16, 1900). We will cite only outstanding, deeply true and deeply instructive passages, which at the same time contain biographical features. First of all, the words of Prof. should always be remembered. T. Nalimova: “Inexorable death takes away from our midst the most powerful, the most zealous worker, who involuntarily aroused a feeling of awestruck amazement with the power of his spirit, - takes away the one who alone was able to replace and always readily replaced almost every one of us and whom alone we all cannot now replace... The most radiant luminary of Russian spiritual science descends into the darkness of the grave, descends in all its glory rays, having barely completed half of his life's journey... a person who has set the service of truth as his sole goal not only in science, but also in life, alien to any vanity in relation to himself and partiality in relation to others, and with this height and purity of his moral character, he has become, as it were, a mirror of our conscience... Such... deep, comprehensive, creative minds, strong characters (and) pure hearts are not often found; and the combination of all this in a single personality is a truly exceptional phenomenon... Meanwhile, from the depths of conscience there is still a voice of reproach for the fact that we poorly took care of this rare treasure, and not only did not take care of it, but directly abused it through our fiery zeal for work, our readiness to help everyone, to always serve science and the common cause." Senior student V. Uspensky said: “In our time, when inner-spiritual life is so alienated, when life’s ideals are so debased, and people willingly make peace with external advantages - strength, wealth, nobility, etc.; when a theory openly proclaiming such a system of life as completely normal and the only possible is spreading more and more: then heroes of the spirit like you, dear teacher, are of especially great importance. They are lights - in the surrounding social darkness: for those who do not sympathize with that current, who know that the truth is not here, such people can provide support, can serve as a support. By their very existence, they say more convincingly than any speeches that a life given to the service of an idea, for the sake of which one has left and forgotten everything in the world, is possible on earth, they affect the very heart, serving as a living reproach for everyone who lives differently, they awaken the public conscience. And of course, the spiritual and moral influence of such heroes of the spirit does not end with their death." The highest decoration and completion of the sad celebration of the last farewell to the remains of Vasily Vasilyevich was the reading of Rev. Boris the HIGHEST telegram from Moscow, with the following content: “THE GOVERNOR EMPEROR was pleased to express to the St. Petersburg Theological Academy His condolences regarding the heavy loss it suffered with the death of Professor Vasily Vasilyevich Bolotov, whose scientific works were known to HIS MAJESTY.” This is an honor, attention and reward, which, of course, is awarded to rare, exceptional individuals. Peace to your ashes, most worthy of people! Nowadays he is a deacon of the village of Berezovsky-Ryadka, Ostashkovsky district. Archive of Tver Seminary. Book 12, No. 23 – 1869. The junior salary was 20 rubles, and the senior salary was 24 per year. In the genuine, elementary is written everywhere. Seminar archive. Case No. 1. book. 1 for 1869 § 10 and others. Vladimir Petrovich subsequently had meetings and even correspondence with Vasily Vasilyevich on issues of local archeology. The certificate was signed by the Overseer, Archpriest, Candidate I. Saltykov, Assistant. view student V. Melidinsky, teacher student I. Speransky, Church of the Transfiguration St. I. Kirpirsky and St. Resurrection Church. P. Belsky July 15, 1869. Seminar archive. Report for 1869/1870, pp. 78, 79, 80 and others. And he went with him in the same class up to 5th grade inclusive, when produced from 1874–1875 school year. g. reform at the Tver Seminary separated us for a year in class, but not in comradeship. Reading your books. V-ch sometimes made inscriptions on them - his own, or from other works. Of the first we could not find anything; they did not survive, probably because the books on which they were did not survive either; of the latter, his own handwritten inscription on the 1st volume of Op. T. N. Granovsky (2nd edition Moscow 1866), the only one (2nd volume lost) that has survived to this day in the student library of the Tver Seminary. The inscription represents an extract of 26 verses from Nekrasov’s “Bear Hunt,” which talks about Granovsky. The extract begins with the verse: “I also knew Granovsky (The underlining belongs to you. V-chu.) closely”; “When over the poor Russian land The dawn of hope slowly rose, An illness has ripened, sown with melancholy, Which has been destroying you all your life." Tver. Epar. Ved. 1900 No. 11 p. 265, note. It was kindly put at our disposal by mentor A.A.T., who assessed it and wished to keep it as a keepsake. In our time, an objection was any question from the course of the subject being studied, proposed by the mentor to the student for independent resolution. But based on the answer, the mentor determined the student’s level of development and erudition. For the sake of accuracy, we present a table of subjects studied in Tver. Semin., a year before its transformation, compared with the modern one: Review of philosophical doctrines and trigonometry were introduced into the range of subjects of study only in this year 187¾. textbook year, and in the previous academic year there were none. Seminar archive. Report 187, pp. 54–55. Seminar Archive. Report 1869–1870 pp. 64, 65. We mean a list of books that were later not allowed to be issued from public libraries and public reading rooms. Bibliology. 1894, No. 1, p. 55. Church Vestn. 1900 No. 16, p. 524. Tver Diocesan Gazette 1899 No. 12, pp. 327–328. Tver. Epar. Ved. 1882. No. 2, p. 49. Tver. Eparch. Ved. 1896 No. 19, pp. 553, 558 and 561. These are stories published in the “Books of the Week” for 1878, which he read during his vacation with his mother. In order not to talk about V. V.’s study of Origen a second time, and also to show to what extent the same topic in processing for a master’s thesis presented new and enormous difficulties, let us quote what V. V. writes in 1879: “The subject of my dissertation is an old topic: “Origen’s Doctrine of the Holy Trinity.” I still have the famous Alexandrian in carceribus. But to get to Origen from one end, you need to go through - well, at least - a corridor (about 25-30 written sheets) of teachings and philosophers and church writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. (Justin, Tatiana, Athenagoras, Theophilus, some believe - the same one to whom Ev. Luke “created the first book about all that Jesus began...”, Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, Hippolytus) and heretics (two Theodotos, Praxeus, Noetus, Sauvellius); and in order to approach it from the other end, you need to get through a series of opinions about Origen by different scientists, through Origenist disputes and Arianism.” The person writing these lines, due to illness in the first year of the Academy, had to stay for a repeat course, therefore, he is another year behind you. B-cha, so when the first one was still in his first year, you. He had already moved to 3rd grade, and in 1880 he even had to take an exam from him (as an assistant) on the new general church history. In this dissertation, he developed and scientifically substantiated the following “theses”: 1) Rufinus's assumption that Origen's writings were corrupted by heretics has no solid foundation. 2) The Latin translations of Origen's works made by Jerome and Rufinus cannot be a completely satisfactory source for presenting Origen's teaching on the Holy Trinity. 3) In Origen's teaching about God the Father there are details favorable to the development of subordinationism in the teaching about the Son. 4) Origen was polemical about the doctrine of the birth of the Son of God from the being of the Father. 5) The birth of the Son from the will of the Father, according to Origen, is not identical with creation in the sense in which the Arians allowed it. 6) The concept of xxxxx and Origen’s are not strictly different. 7) Origen was polemical about the doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. 8) Subordinationism is a predominant feature in his teaching about the Son of God. 9) The difference between the Father, as xxxxx (absolute God) xxxxx and the one true God, on the one hand, and the Son, as xxxxx, truly God, deified through participation in the Divinity of the Father, on the other, is not clear in its entirety from the difference between the first, as the beginning, and the second, as dependent on the beginning. 10) The difference between the one good Father and the image of His goodness, the Son, is deeper than the simple difference between original and derivative goodness. 11) The simple advantage of the Father as the principle of the Son does not explain those limitations in the knowledge of the Son compared to the knowledge of the Father, which Origen allows. 12) The dark side in Origen’s teaching on prayer is that in the proper sense one should not pray to the Son, even together with the Father. 13) The difference assumed by Origen between those miracles that Christ performs by His authority and those before the performance of which He prays to the Father, as well as the difference between the Father, as the immeasurable light, and the Son, as the true light and radiance of the first light, between the Father, as the giver of being, and the Son, as the giver of reason, leads to subordinationism in essence. 14) The doctrine of the unity of the Father and the Son did not receive a satisfactory statement in the theology of Origen. 15) The Holy Spirit, according to the teachings of Origen, is subordinate to the Father and the Son. 16) Origen’s view that the Holy Spirit comes from the Father through the Son does not agree not only with the Orthodox teaching that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, but also with the Western “qui ex Patre Filioque procedit”. 17) Arianism, while differing from the teachings of Origen at its very core, comes close to him in many details. 18) The dogmatics of the Semi-Arians have very much in common with the theology of Origen. 19) The true content of the so-called Origenistic disputes, which ended with the condemnation of Origenism under Justinian, is a struggle not against Origen’s teaching about the Holy Trinity, but against his anthropology with its Christological and eschatological consequences. Church Bulletin 1900 No. 16, p. 492. In the first year of teaching, V.V.’s lessons were on Wednesday and Saturday. Words from Prof. I. E. Troitsky. Church Vestn. 1900 No. 16 p. 493. Nowadays he is a priest of the village of Eski, Bezhetsk district, Tver province. Vladim. Eparch. Gazette 1900 No. 10, p. 340. Church Bulletin 1900 No. 16, p. 492. The ellipsis here, as well as in other places, means the omission of a word or expression that is unnecessary in a given place for the purposes of our arguments. Church Bulletin Ibid. page 493. Church Bulletin Ibid, p. 493. Observer of the state of the science of church history in Russia, Mr. B. Melioransky, believes “V. V. Bolotov is one of the first experts on church history, not only in Russia, but also in Europe.” Brockhaus Encyclopedic Dictionary. Half volume 55, p. 808. Here is a list of your most important works. The article is borrowed from the “List” compiled by A. Rozhdestvensky, where all other articles are named. Church Bulletin No. 16, pp. 498–9. Vladim. Eparch. Led. 1900. No. 10 p. 341. Church Bulletin Ibid, p. 496. Church Bulletin Ibid p. 497. Church Bulletin, p. 497. See letter from prof. S. Glazenap in “Novoye Vremya” No. 8698. In No. 8700 of the same newspaper there is a more complete presentation of this position, along with a refutation of its interpretation by Academician F.A. Bredikhin in “Russia”, Nos. 377 and 380. Moscow Gazette. “In memory of Professor V.V. Bolotov,” April 28, 1900, No. 116. Church Bulletin 1900 No. 16, p. 496. Bulletin of Europe 1900 No. 7, p. 416. When our brochure was already being printed, an article appeared on the scientific significance of the works of Vasily Vasilyevich, Orientalist professor V. Turaev, to which we refer those interested in this issue. See journal. Min. Nar. Prosv, part of the SSS (1900, No. 8) dept. 4. Church Bulletin 1900 No. 16, p. 498. By the way, let's say that you. In addition to his other knowledge, he made attempts to learn how to draw, and even paint. The writer of these lines has two icons drawn by him, one with a pen, on white cloth with a red lining, (size 2X4 in.) and representing the face of the Mother of God with the Child in her arms, with the inscription below MR, on the right side עשיריעם and on the left פנידיהלו; on the back of the red lining there is also an image of two crosses made up of letters, thus: , the other is on paper, written in watercolor (size 3.4 in.) depicting three saints with the inscription: S. Vasilius, S. Gregorius, S. Ioannes. These images were constantly kept in the Bible that belonged to Vasily Vasilyevich and was given by his mother during his lifetime to the local priest Fr. N.M.V. – The icons, it seems, were supposed to serve as an image of Angels: You. V-cha - January 1, and his mother - April 1. A year later, in a letter to another friend of mine, you. V-ch writes about these individuals: “Since the spring of this year, I have added a new self-proclaimed profession. Our doctors who were in Abyssinia all returned as holders of Ethiopian orders. Their charters are written in Amarynya, the living, colloquial language of Abyssinia, which is no more similar to Ethiopian than French is to Latin. But I called myself a milk mushroom in terms of gyiz - I had to climb into the Amharic body. I undertook to translate these letters because in St. Petersburg in March there was no person with the proper qualifications who could understand the “amarynya” better than me. (Now Life Hussar Cornet A.K. Bulatovich has returned from Abyssinia, and speaks and writes a little in this language). Almost all the documents of our Ethiopian cavaliers passed through my hands. Even just before leaving for Pernov (Livonia province, where Vas. V-ch went to be treated with mud baths in the summer of 1897), at the request of the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it was necessary to examine 23 Ethiopian charters.” With his brother and sister from his father’s first marriage, Vas. V-ch and his mother did not have any relations. “I sincerely thank you for the pleasure both of your letters gave me... Both of them are perfection in their own way”... “I can only congratulate you, my dear, on... the masterful work of your pen”... In the desert, Matins lasts 4–6 hours, Mass 3–4 hours, and Vespers 2–3 hours. The service was especially splendid under Archimandrite. Arsenia. Father Arseny was a native of the village of Shchuchya, neighboring Kravotynsky, the son of a poor sexton, dismissed due to lack of success from the first class of the Ostashkovsky Theological School, who entered the Nilova Hermitage as a novice in his adolescence, went through all the obediences and all the ranks of monastic life to the grave hieromonk and sacristan; through labor, patience, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, who attracted the attention of Archbishop Philotheus and earned his love; former abbot of the Ostashkov Zhitenny Monastery from 1863 to 1871; from 1871 to 1898 he ruled the Nilova Hermitage, where he brought church services to the proper level. He loved church, solitude in his cell, prayer and singing; he can be called a fasting ascetic. His solemn, reverent and lengthy service did not tire the pilgrim; his exclamations, expressive, drawn-out and distinct reading, movements and bows made an indelible impression on the pilgrims... O Archimand. In divine services, Arseny was an inimitable student of Archbishop Philotheus, who probably loved him for this. Note by M. A. Ryazantsev. “They say that one day you. V-ch examined the observatory and, in a conversation with its director, discovered such thorough and extensive knowledge of astronomy that he asked him at which educational institution he taught astronomy, and was extremely surprised when he heard that he was a professor of church history at the Theological Academy.” Vladimir Diocesan Gazette No. 10, p. 343. As an associate professor and professor, during the holidays in Kravotyn he would order Novoye Vremya, read it in fits and starts, cut out the more interesting articles and notes with scissors, and throw the rest away. In one of your letters. In-cha to Mich. Aleksandrovich has a more detailed indication of how he treated periodical literature during the period of his professorship. So in 1883 he writes: “If you are curious to look into the not-secret “secrets” of my desk and bookcase, then you would see that I do not subscribe to any daily newspaper and do not read them even where there is an opportunity to “skim” them. I simply find that I will pay sufficient tribute to the “attention” of “modern reality” if I spend a leisure hour - half an hour on Saturday - getting acquainted with it according to the No. of the Church Bulletin. I don’t have any other Russian newspapers, even weekly ones, and I don’t touch them where I see them. I also receive the weekly German Luthard's Theologisches Literaturblatt (Theological Literary Leaflet) from Leipzig, which deigns to report to me weekly about every book, almost every article published in German and capable of interest to a theologian, so that I can always keep an eye on every bird that again flies out of this vast backwater, where, of course, there is a lot of “game”. Then I only read monthly magazines and books.” Words from M.A. about you. We conveyed everything almost literally, with only minor omissions, rearrangements and some stylistic changes. “My thoughts,” he says, “are confused by the memory of the noblest and most kind of you. V-ch, whose location I did not deservedly took advantage of "... Back in 1897, he wrote about his health: “my body is a leaky sieve, if not a ruin. The stomach changes treacherously. Rheumatism and haemorrhoides. The latter gave me acute, pronounced anemia. My face is therefore not one of the blooming ones. Sufficiently corpse-like"… In one of your letters. In-cha there are the following lines concerning these cases, which we consider necessary to present here. “I don’t know whether my mother’s spiritual will, written by her hand, has survived. But the point - all the same - is that the deceased wanted to give up her little house for the church. In Kravotyn, of course, everyone knows that she has no heirs left except me. And therefore it is necessary to fulfill her will without any ceremony. The house is obviously not in place, and therefore it should be sold for scrap, or for firewood, and the money should be put into the church. And the cost of “real estate” is such that it’s not even worth talking about. To me, as I asked, send only the image of the Savior (in the aureole) (it is better to put papers or at least cotton wool under the glass; in case the glass breaks, it will not scratch the image). Moreover, I ask you to send all Kravoupyn photographic cards.” From an article by I. S. Palmov. Church Bulletin 1900 No. 1b, pp. 502–503.