Painting “Oral Account” by Bogdanov-Belsky. What does the picture “oral arithmetic in a public school” say?

Many have seen the picture "Oral calculation in public school". The end of the 19th century, a public school, a blackboard, an intelligent teacher, poorly dressed children, 9–10 years old, enthusiastically trying to solve a problem written on the blackboard in their minds. The first person to solve it reports the answer to the teacher in the ear, in a whisper, so that others do not lose interest.

Now let's look at the problem: (10 squared + 11 squared + 12 squared + 13 squared + 14 squared) / 365 =???

Crap! Crap! Crap! Our children at the age of 9 will not solve such a problem, at least in their minds! Why were grimy and barefoot village children taught so well in a one-room wooden school, but our children were taught so poorly?!

Don't rush to be indignant. Take a closer look at the picture. Don’t you think that the teacher looks too intelligent, somehow like a professor, and is dressed with obvious pretension? Why in school class such a high ceiling and an expensive stove with white tiles? Is this really what village schools and their teachers looked like?

Of course, they didn't look like that. The painting is called "Oral arithmetic in the public school of S.A. Rachinsky." Sergei Rachinsky is a professor of botany at Moscow University, a man with certain government connections (for example, a friend of the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod Pobedonostsev), a landowner - in the middle of his life he abandoned all his affairs, went to his estate (Tatevo in the Smolensk province) and started a business there (of course, for own account) experimental public school.

The school was one-class, which did not mean that they taught there for one year. In such a school they taught for 3-4 years (and in two-year schools - 4-5 years, in three-year schools - 6 years). The word one-class meant that children of three years of study form a single class, and one teacher teaches them all within one lesson. It was a rather tricky business: while the children of one year of study were doing some kind of written exercise, the children of the second year were answering at the blackboard, the children of the third year were reading a textbook, etc., and the teacher alternately paid attention to each group.

Rachinsky's pedagogical theory was very original, and its different parts somehow did not fit together well. Firstly, Rachinsky considered the basis of education for the people to be teaching the Church Slavonic language and the Law of God, and not so much explanatory as consisting in memorizing prayers. Rachinsky firmly believed that a child who knew a certain number of prayers by heart would certainly grow up to be a highly moral person, and the very sounds of the Church Slavonic language would already have a moral-improving effect. To practice the language, Rachinsky recommended that children hire themselves out to read the Psalter over the dead (sic!).

Secondly, Rachinsky believed that it was useful and necessary for peasants to quickly count in their heads. Teaching mathematical theory Rachinsky had little interest, but he performed very well in oral arithmetic at his school. The students firmly and quickly answered how much change per ruble should be given to someone who buys 6 3/4 pounds of carrots at 8 1/2 kopecks per pound. Squaring, as depicted in the painting, was the most difficult mathematical operation studied in his school.

And finally, Rachinsky was a supporter of very practical teaching of the Russian language - students were not required to have any special spelling skills or good handwriting, and they were not taught theoretical grammar at all. The main thing was to learn to read and write fluently, albeit in clumsy handwriting and not very competently, but clearly, something that could be useful to a peasant in everyday life: simple letters, petitions, etc. Even at Rachinsky’s school, some manual labor was taught, the children sang in chorus, and that was where all education ended.

Rachinsky was a real enthusiast. School became his whole life. Rachinsky’s children lived in a dormitory and were organized into a commune: they performed all the maintenance work for themselves and the school. Rachinsky, who had no family, spent all his time with children from early morning until late evening, and since he was a very kind, noble person and sincerely attached to children, his influence on his students was enormous. By the way, Rachinsky gave a gingerbread to the first child who solved the problem (in literally words, but he didn’t have a whip).

School classes themselves took 5–6 months a year, and the rest of the time Rachinsky individually studied with older children, preparing them for admission to various educational institutions of the next level; the primary public school was not directly connected with others educational institutions and after it it was impossible to continue training without additional preparation. Rachinsky wanted to see the most advanced of his students as teachers primary school and priests, so he prepared children mainly for theological and teacher seminaries. There were also significant exceptions - first of all, the author of the picture himself, Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky, whom Rachinsky helped to get into the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. But, oddly enough, leading peasant children along the main road educated person- gymnasium / university / civil service- Rachinsky did not want to.

Rachinsky wrote popular pedagogical articles and continued to enjoy a certain influence in the capital's intellectual circles. The most important was the acquaintance with the ultra-influential Pobedonostsev. Under the certain influence of Rachinsky's ideas, the religious department decided that the zemstvo school would be of no use - the liberals would not teach children anything good - and in the mid-1890s they began to develop their own independent network of parochial schools.

In some ways, parochial schools were similar to Rachinsky's school - they had a lot of Church Slavonic language and prayers, and other subjects were correspondingly reduced. But, alas, the advantages of the Tatev school were not passed on to them. The priests had little interest in school affairs, ran the schools under pressure, did not teach in these schools themselves, and hired the most third-rate teachers, and paid them noticeably less than in zemstvo schools. The peasants did not like the parochial school, because they realized that they hardly taught anything useful there, and they were of little interest in prayers. By the way, it was the teachers of the church school, recruited from pariahs of the clergy, who turned out to be one of the most revolutionized professional groups of that time, and it was through them that socialist propaganda actively penetrated into the village.

Now we see that this is a common thing - any original pedagogy, designed for the deep involvement and enthusiasm of the teacher, immediately dies during mass reproduction, falling into the hands of uninterested and lethargic people. But for that time it was big bummer. Parochial schools, which by 1900 made up about a third of primary public schools, turned out to be disliked by everyone. When, starting in 1907, the state began to allocate a lot of money to primary education, there was no question of passing subsidies to church schools through the Duma; almost all the funds went to the zemstvo residents.

The more widespread zemstvo school was quite different from Rachinsky’s school. To begin with, the Zemstvo people considered the Law of God completely useless. It was impossible to refuse to teach him for political reasons, so the zemstvos pushed him into a corner as best they could. The law of God was taught by a parish priest who was underpaid and ignored, with corresponding results.

Mathematics in the zemstvo school was taught worse than in Rachinsky, and in a smaller volume. The course ended with operations with simple fractions and non-metric system of measures. The teaching did not go as far as exponentiation, so ordinary elementary school students simply would not understand the problem depicted in the picture.

The zemstvo school tried to turn the teaching of the Russian language into world studies, through the so-called explanatory reading. The technique consisted in the fact that while dictating an educational text in the Russian language, the teacher also additionally explained to the students what was said in the text itself. In this palliative way, Russian language lessons also turned into geography, natural history, history - that is, into all those developmental subjects that had no place in the short course of a one-grade school.

So, our picture depicts not a typical, but a unique school. This is a monument to Sergei Rachinsky, a unique personality and teacher, the last representative of that cohort of conservatives and patriots, to which the well-known expression “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” could not yet be attributed. The mass public school was in economically It was equipped much more poorly, the mathematics course in it was shorter and simpler, and the teaching was weaker. And, of course, ordinary elementary school students could not not only solve, but also understand the problem reproduced in the picture.

By the way, what method do schoolchildren use to solve a problem on the board? Only straight forward: multiply 10 by 10, remember the result, multiply 11 by 11, add both results, and so on. Rachinsky believed that the peasant did not have writing materials at hand, so he taught only oral counting techniques, omitting all arithmetic and algebraic transformations that required calculations on paper.

For some reason, the picture shows only boys, while all the materials show that Rachinsky taught children of both sexes. What this means is unclear.

Full title famous painting which is pictured above: " Verbal counting. At the public school of S. A. Rachinsky " This painting by the Russian artist Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky was painted in 1895, and now hangs in Tretyakov Gallery. In this article you will learn some details about it. famous work, who Sergei Rachinsky was, and most importantly - get the correct answer to the task shown on the board.

Brief description of the painting

The painting depicts a 19th century rural school during an arithmetic lesson. The teacher figure has real prototype— Sergei Aleksandrovich Rachinsky, botanist and mathematician, professor at Moscow University. Rural schoolchildren decide very interesting example. It is clear that it is not easy for them. In the picture, 11 students are thinking about the problem, but it seems that only one boy has figured out how to solve this example in his head, and quietly speaks his answer into the teacher’s ear.

Nikolai Petrovich dedicated this painting to his school teacher Sergei Alexandrovich Rachinsky, who is depicted on it in the company of his students. Bogdanov-Belsky knew the characters in his film very well, since he himself had once been in their situation. He was lucky enough to get into the school of the famous Russian teacher Professor S.A. Rachinsky, who noticed the boy’s talent and helped him get an art education.

About Rachinsky

Sergei Alexandrovich Rachinsky (1833-1902) - Russian scientist, teacher, educator, professor at Moscow University, botanist and mathematician. Continuing the endeavors of his parents, he taught at a rural school, even though the Rachinskys were a noble family. Sergei Alexandrovich was a man of diverse knowledge and interests: in the school art workshop, Rachinsky himself taught painting, drawing and drawing classes.

IN early period In his teaching career, Rachinsky searched in line with the ideas of the German teacher Karl Volkmar Stoy and Leo Tolstoy, with whom he corresponded. In the 1880s, he became the main ideologist of the parochial school in Russia, which began to compete with the zemstvo school. Rachinsky came to the conclusion that the most important practical need of the Russian people is communication with God.

As for mathematics and mental arithmetic, Sergei Rachinsky left as a legacy his famous problem book “ 1001 mental arithmetic problems ", some tasks (with answers) from which you can find at.

Read more about Sergei Alexandrovich Rachinsky on his biography page.

Solution to the example on the board

There are several ways to solve the expression written on the board in Bogdanov-Belsky’s painting. By following this link you will find four various solutions. If at school you learned squares of numbers up to 20 or up to 25, then most likely the task on the board will not cause you much difficulty. This expression is equal to: (100+121+144+169+196) divided by 365, which ultimately equals 730 divided by 365, which is “2”.

In addition, on our website in the “” section you can meet Sergei Rachinsky and find out what “” is. And it is the knowledge of these sequences that allows you to solve the problem in a matter of seconds, because:

10 2 +11 2 +12 2 = 13 2 +14 2 = 365

Humor and parody interpretations

Nowadays, schoolchildren not only solve some of Rachinsky’s popular problems, but also write essays based on the painting “Oral Calculus. At the public school of S. A. Rachinsky,” which could not but affect the desire of schoolchildren to joke about the work. The popularity of the painting “Oral Reckoning” is reflected in the numerous parodies of it that can be found on the Internet. Here are just a few of them:

Surely, everyone who studied at school (especially in Soviet time), remember the picture from the textbook “Mathematics”, in which schoolchildren are trying to solve an example written on the board. Do you remember? I'm sure yes.

It was not very often that we were spoiled with some kind of in order to activate our attention and instill love for the subject. The majority asserted categorically: “You must study!” , “It’s your job,” etc.

But anyone (and even an adult, with a more conscious, so to speak, approach) will involuntarily ask the question: “Why should I study? WHY do I need this?

And here you can go in at least two ways. The first is to explain to the unconscious young creature the benefits of learning. And it immediately becomes clear that this is a dead-end move. Modern schoolchildren do not have guidelines and values ​​in order to try and “tear their claws”, strain and deny themselves something. I’m not saying that there are no such children at all. There are enough of them, and among my students there are many such “conscious elements.” But basically, now they learn either under pressure or carelessly. And this is upsetting.

But at all times, and especially now, the question of motivating students to learn has been faced. And this article aims to awaken interest in mathematics using such techniques as mental calculation.

“How can this be done?” you ask.

“Very simple,” I will say in response.

Just look at the painting by the Russian artist N. P. Bogdanov-Belsky « Verbal counting. At the public school of S. A. Rachinsky."

Look what's on it. This is a 19th century village school. Moreover, it is real, not made up by the artist. And in the picture - the same a real man, Rachinsky Sergey Alexandrovich (1833 – 1902), noble origin. The name may not be familiar to most. However, he was a well-known personality in teaching circles at that time. He was a professor at Moscow University, a doctor of botany, a good writer, a corresponding member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, etc.

The merits of S.A. Rachinsky are sufficient: starting from the fact that in 1872 he created a school with a dormitory for peasant children, he himself taught painting and drawing there and educated many famous personalities, created the first textbook on “mental arithmetic” in Russia. But the most valuable thing for mathematics teachers is that he developed a unique teaching methodology mental arithmetic.

His famous phrase: “You can’t run from the field for a pencil and paper. You have to decide mentally” speaks for itself. And you can't argue with that.

Rachinsky was reported to the emperor Alexander III So:

“You will please remember how several years ago I reported to you about Sergei Rachinsky, a respectable man who, having left his professorship at Moscow University, went to live on his estate, in the most remote forest wilderness of the Belsky district of the Smolensk province, and lives there forever. for more than 14 years, working from morning to night for the benefit of the people. He inhaled completely new life into a whole generation of peasants... He truly became a benefactor of the area, having founded and leads, with the help of 4 priests, 5 public schools, which now represent a model for the entire land. This is a wonderful person. He gives everything he has and all the resources of his estate to this cause, limiting his needs to the last degree.”

And in response from Nicholas II, the imperial words were heard in praise of the great philanthropist-teacher:

“The schools founded and led by you... became... a school of work, sobriety and good morals and a living model for all similar institutions. Close to My heart is the concern for public education, whom you serve worthily, prompts Me to express My sincere gratitude to you. I am with you, my kind Nikolai.”

So, what is depicted in the picture, which attracts attention if only because it depicts children? And not just frolicking or chasing a dog, playing hide and seek or stealing apples from a neighbor’s garden (how many similar scenes do we know from painting)?

Painting “Oral calculation. At the public school of S.A. Rachinsky"

On the artist's canvas N. P. Bogdanov-Belsky an episode from the life of the school was written out with the creative atmosphere that reigned in mathematics lessons, set by the teachers of the Tatev Rachinsky School.

A seemingly unattractive computational example is written on the board:

But how he interested the guys gathered at the blackboard!

Someone was thinking alone, someone was discussing their ideas with a group of classmates, someone was clinging to the teacher, supposedly asking for support and whispering their answer in his ear (“What if it’s wrong? What will the guys think then?”)

And it would seem that it won’t work out... and okay. This is just an example. “Just think...,” as the hero from the cartoon “In the Land of Unlearned Lessons” says.

And yet, schoolchildren think and think intensely. And the teacher sat down in the corner as an outside observer and... no, no. And I would like, perhaps, to suggest, to direct thoughts in the right direction. But that’s why an example is given: to figure it out, think it over slowly and give the correct answer. And the main thing is to perform all mental operations verbally.

I’m sure that if you offered modern kids such an example, most of them would immediately reach into their briefcases for calculators. Our people have forgotten how to think modern schoolchildren strain. And whoever wasn’t lazy (or didn’t have “brain crutches” at hand in time) would most likely consider this example “head-on”, i.e. would perform sequentially written actions. And thereby I would make my “life” more difficult.

But everything is much simpler and more interesting. See:

See, it's simple. And if you know the property of some numbers that the sum of the squares of three consecutive numbers is equal to the sum of the squares of the two consecutive numbers following them, then you could do without these calculations.

“This task is also good because it not only sharpens the brain, but is also suitable for many far-reaching generalizations,” said S.A. Rachinsky.

AND Rachinsky's problem also exists. But I will write about this later.

So, the main character today was the painting "". Recently, the most famous mathematics lesson, which was taught at a peasant school in the Oleninsky district of the Smolensk province by Sergei Aleksandrovich Rachinsky, turned 195 years old. It was he who left the university department to become a rural teacher. And thanks to him, Russia received many outstanding cultural and artistic figures, among whom were Tretyakov, Nikolai Stepanovich and the author of the painting discussed in this article, Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov - Belsky.

What influence did he have on the formation of these two? legendary personalities S. A. Rachinsky, we will look at it in the next article. And at the same time, we will touch upon a topical topic for today: the influence of the teacher’s personality on the younger generation.

But if you were interested in getting to know the personality of S.A. Rachinsky and the painting “Oral Account. At the folk school of S.A. Rachinsky” by artist N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky, click the buttons below and share this knowledge with your friends.

This picture is called “Oral arithmetic at Rachinsky’s school,” and it was painted by the same boy who is in the foreground in the picture.
He grew up, graduated from this parochial school of Rachinsky (by the way, a friend of K.P. Pobedonostsev, the ideologist of parochial schools) and became a famous artist.
Do you know who we are talking about?

P.S. By the way, did you solve the problem?))

"Verbal counting. At the public school of S. A. Rachinsky” is a painting written in 1985 by the artist N. P. Bogdanov-Belsky.

On the canvas we see a lesson in mental arithmetic in a village school of the 19th century. The teacher is a very real, historical person. This is a mathematician and botanist, professor at Moscow University Sergei Aleksandrovich Rachinsky. Fascinated by the ideas of populism, in 1872 Rachinsky came from Moscow to his native village of Tatevo and created a school there with a dormitory for village children. In addition, he developed his own method of teaching mental arithmetic. By the way, the artist Bogdanov-Belsky was himself a student of Rachinsky. Pay attention to the problem written on the board.

Can you solve it? Give it a try.

About Rachinsky rural school, who is still in late XIX century, instilled in village children the skills of mental calculation and the basics of mathematical thinking. The illustration for the note, a reproduction of a painting by Bogdanov-Belsky, depicts the process of solving the fraction 102+112+122+132+142365 in the mind. Readers were asked to find the simplest and most rational method finding the answer.

As an example, a calculation option was given in which it was proposed to simplify the numerator of the expression by grouping its terms differently:

102+112+122+132+142=102+122+142+112+132=4(52+62+72)+112+(11+2)2=4(25+36+49)+121+121 +44+4=4×110+242+48=440+290=730.

It should be noted that this solution was found “honestly” - in the mind and blindly, while walking with the dog in a grove near Moscow.

More than twenty readers responded to the invitation to send their solutions. Of these, slightly less than half suggest representing the numerator in the form

102+(10+1)2+(10+2)2+(10+3)2+(10+4)2=5×102+20+40+60+80+1+4+9+16.

This is M. Graf-Lyubarsky (Pushkino); A. Glutsky (Krasnokamensk, Moscow region); A. Simonov (Berdsk); V. Orlov (Lipetsk); Kudrina (Rechitsa, Republic of Belarus); V. Zolotukhin (Serpukhov, Moscow region); Yu. Letfullova, 10th grade student (Ulyanovsk); O. Chizhova (Kronstadt).

The terms were even more rationally represented as (12−2)2+(12−1)2+122+(12+1)2+(12+2)2, when the products ±2 by 1, 2 and 12 cancel each other out, B . Zlokazov; M. Likhomanova, Yekaterinburg; G. Schneider, Moscow; I. Gornostaev; I. Andreev-Egorov, Severobaykalsk; V. Zolotukhin, Serpukhov, Moscow region.

Reader V. Idiatullin offers his own way of converting amounts:

102+112+122=100+200+112−102+122−102=300+1×21+2×22=321+44=365;

132+142=200+132−102+142−102=200+3×23+4×24=269+94=365.

D. Kopylov (St. Petersburg) recalls one of the most famous mathematical discoveries of S. A. Rachinsky: there are five consecutive natural numbers, the sum of the squares of the first three of which is equal to the sum of the squares of the last two. These numbers are shown on the chalkboard. And if Rachinsky’s students knew the squares of the first fifteen to twenty numbers by heart, the problem boiled down to addition three-digit numbers. For example: 132+142=169+196=169+(200−4). Hundreds, tens and units are added separately, and all that remains is to count: 69−4=65.

In a similar way, Y. Novikov, Z. Grigoryan (Kuznetsk, Penza region), V. Maslov (Znamensk, Astrakhan region), N. Lakhova (St. Petersburg), S. Cherkasov (Tetkino village, Kursk region) solved the problem .) and L. Zhevakin (Moscow), who also proposed a fraction calculated in a similar way:

102+112+122+132+142+152+192+22365=3.

A. Shamshurin (Borovichi, Novgorod region) used a recurrent formula of the type A2i=(Ai−1+1)2 to calculate the squares of numbers, which greatly simplifies the calculations, for example: 132=(12+1)2=144+24+1 .

Reader V. Parshin (Moscow) tried to apply the rule of rapid raising to the second power from E. Ignatiev’s book “In the Kingdom of Ingenuity,” discovered an error in it, derived his own equation and applied it to solve the problem. IN general view a2=(a−n)(a+n)+n2, where n is any number less than a. Then
112=10×12+12,
122=10×14+22,
132=10×16+32
etc., then the terms are grouped rationally so that the numerator ends up being 700 + 30.

Engineer A. Trofimov (p. Ibresi, Chuvashia) produced a very interesting analysis number sequence in the numerator and converted it to arithmetic progression kind

X1+x2+...+xn,where xi=ai+1−ai.

For this progression the statement is true

Xn=2n+1, that is, a2n+1=a2n+2n+1,

Where does equality come from?

A2n+k=a2n+2nk+n2

It allows you to mentally count the squares of two to three-digit numbers and can be used to solve the Rachinsky problem.

Finally, it turned out that the correct answer could be obtained through estimates rather than exact calculations. A. Polushkin (Lipetsk) notes that although the sequence of squares of numbers is not linear, you can take the square of the average number - 12 - five times, rounding it: 144 × 5 ≈ 150 × 5 = 750. A 750:365≈2. Since it is clear that mental arithmetic must operate with integers, this answer is certainly correct. It was received in 15 seconds! But it can still be checked additionally by estimating “from below” and “from above”:

102×5=500,500:365>1
142×5=196×5<200×5=1000,1000:365<3.

More than 1, but less than 3, therefore - 2. Exactly the same assessment was carried out by V. Yudas (Moscow).

The author of the note “Fulfilled Prediction” G. Poloznev (Berdsk, Novosibirsk region) rightly noted that the numerator must certainly be a multiple of the denominator, that is, equal to 365, 730, 1095, etc. Estimation of the magnitude of partial sums clearly indicates the second number.

It is difficult to say which of the proposed methods of calculation is the simplest: everyone chooses their own based on the characteristics of their own mathematical thinking.

For more details, see: http://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/6347/ (Science and life, Mental arithmetic)

This painting also depicts Rachinsky and the author.

While working in a rural school, Sergei Aleksandrovich Rachinsky brought into the world: Bogdanov I.L. - infectious disease specialist, doctor of medical sciences, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences;
Vasiliev Alexander Petrovich (September 6, 1868 - September 5, 1918) - archpriest, confessor of the royal family, a teetotaler pastor, a patriot-monarchist;
Sinev Nikolai Mikhailovich (December 10, 1906 - September 4, 1991) - Doctor of Technical Sciences (1956), Professor (1966), Honored. worker of science and technology of the RSFSR. In 1941 - deputy. Ch. tank building designer, 1948-61 - beginning. OKB at Kirovsky plant. In 1961-91 - deputy. prev state Institute of the USSR on the use of atomic energy, laureate of Stalin and State. awards (1943, 1951, 1953, 1967); and many others.

S.A. Rachinsky (1833-1902), a representative of an ancient noble family, was born and died in the village of Tatevo, Belsky district, and meanwhile was a corresponding member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, who devoted his life to the creation of a Russian rural school. Last May marked the 180th anniversary of the birth of this outstanding Russian man, a true ascetic (there is an initiative to canonize him as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church), a tireless worker, a rural teacher we have forgotten and an amazing thinker, for whom L.N. Tolstoy learned to build a rural school, P.I. Tchaikovsky received recordings of folk songs, and V.V. Rozanov was spiritually mentored in matters of writing.

By the way, the author of the above-mentioned painting, Nikolai Bogdanov (Belsky is a pseudonym prefix, since the painter was born in the village of Shitiki, Belsky district, Smolensk province) came from the poor and was just a student of Sergei Alexandrovich, who in thirty years created about three dozen rural schools and, at his own expense, helped the brightest of his students to realize themselves professionally, who became not only rural teachers (about forty people!) or professional artists (three students, including Bogdanov), but also, say, a law teacher for the royal children, as a graduate of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy Archpriest Alexander Vasiliev, or a monk of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, like Titus (Nikonov).

Rachinsky built not only schools, but also hospitals in Russian villages; the peasants of Belsky district called him nothing less than “dear father.” Through the efforts of Rachinsky, temperance societies were recreated in Russia, uniting tens of thousands of people throughout the empire by the early 1900s. Now this problem has become even more urgent, drug addiction has now grown into it. It is gratifying that the teetotaling path of the educator has again been picked up, that temperance societies named after Rachinsky are again appearing in Russia, and this is not some “AlAnon” (the American Society of Alcoholics Anonymous, reminiscent of a sect and, unfortunately, leaked to us in the early 1990s ). Let us recall that before the October Revolution of 1917, Russia was one of the most non-drinking countries in Europe, second only to Norway in the “palm of sobriety”.

Professor S.A. Rachinsky

* * *

The writer V. Rozanov drew attention to the fact that the Tatev school of Rachinsky became the mother school, from which “more and more new bees fly away and in a new place do the work and faith of the old. And this faith and deed consisted in the fact that Russian ascetic teachers looked at teaching as a holy mission, a great service to the noble goals of raising spirituality among the people.”

* * *

“Have you been able to meet the heirs of Rachinsky’s ideas in modern life?” - I ask Irina Ushakova, and she talks about a man who shared the fate of the people's teacher Rachinsky: both his lifetime veneration and post-revolutionary desecration. In the 1990s, when she was just beginning to study Rachinsky’s activities, I. Ushakova often met with Tatev school teacher Alexandra Arkadyevna Ivanova and wrote down her memories. Father A.A. Ivanova, Arkady Averyanovich Seryakov (1870-1929), was Rachinsky’s favorite student. He is depicted in Bogdanov-Belsky’s painting “At a Sick Teacher” (1897) and it seems we see him at the table in the painting “Sunday Readings in a Country School”; on the right, under the portrait of the sovereign, Rachinsky is depicted and, I think, Fr. Alexander Vasiliev.

N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky. Sunday readings at a rural school, 1895

In the 1920s, when the darkened people, together with the tempters, destroyed, along with the lordly estates, all the good structures of the nobles, the Rachinsky family crypts were desecrated, the temple in Tatev was turned into a repair shop, and the estate was plundered. All teachers, students of Rachinsky, were expelled from the school.

Remains of a house in the Rachinsky estate (photo 2011)

* * *

In the book “S.A. Rachinsky and his school,” published in Jordanville in 1956 (our emigrants kept this memory, unlike us), tells about the attitude of the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, K.P., towards the rural educator Rachinsky. Pobedonostsev, who on March 10, 1880 wrote to the heir to the Tsarevich, Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich (we read, as if about our days): “The impressions of St. Petersburg are extremely difficult and desolate. To live in such a time and to see at every step people without direct activity, without clear thought and a firm decision, occupied with the small interests of their own self, immersed in the intrigues of their ambition, hungry for money and pleasure and chatting idly, is simply heartbreaking... Kind impressions come only from inside Russia, from somewhere in the countryside, from the wilderness. There is still a intact spring, from which it still breathes freshness: from there, and not from here, is our salvation.

There are people there with a Russian soul, doing good deeds with faith and hope... Still, it’s gratifying to see at least one like that... My friend Sergei Rachinsky, a truly kind and honest person. He was a professor of botany at Moscow University, but when he got tired of the strife and intrigue that arose there between the professors, he left his service and settled in his village, far from all railways... He truly became a benefactor of the whole area, and God sent him people - from the priests and landowners who work with him... This is not talk, but action and true feeling.”

On the same day, the heir to the Tsarevich answered Pobedonostsev: “...how you envy people who can live in the wilderness and bring true benefit and be far from all the abominations of city life, and especially St. Petersburg. I am sure that there are many similar people in Rus', but we don’t hear about them, and they work in the wilderness quietly, without phrases or boasting...”

N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky. At the school door, 1897

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N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky. Verbal counting. At the public school S.A. Rachinsky, 1895

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“The May Man” Sergei Rachinsky passed away on May 2, 1902 (Old Style). Dozens of priests and teachers, rectors of theological seminaries, writers, and scientists came to his funeral. In the decade before the revolution, more than a dozen books were written about Rachinsky’s life and work, and the experience of his school was used in England and Japan.

In one of the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery you can see a famous painting by the artist N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky “Oral calculation”. It depicts a lesson in a rural school. The classes are taught by an old teacher. Village boys in poor peasant shirts and bast shoes crowded around. They are focused and enthusiastically solving the problem proposed by the teacher... The plot is familiar to many from childhood, but not many know that this is not the artist’s imagination and behind all the characters in the picture there are real people, painted by him from life - people whom he knew and loved, and the main character is an elderly teacher, a man who played a key role in the artist’s biography. His fate is surprising and extraordinary - after all, this man is a wonderful Russian educator, teacher of peasant children, Sergei Alexandrovich Rachinsky (1833-1902)

N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky "Oral calculation in the Rachinsky public school" 1895.

Future teacher S.A. Rachinsky.

Sergei Alexandrovich Rachinsky was born on the Tatevo estate, Belsky district, Smolensk province, into a noble family. His father Alexander Antonovich Rachinsky, a former participant in the December movement, was exiled to his family estate of Tatevo for this. Here, on May 2, 1833, the future teacher was born. His mother was the sister of the poet E.A. Baratynsky and the Rachinsky family closely communicated with many representatives of Russian culture. In the family, parents paid great attention to the comprehensive education of their children. All this was very useful to Rachinsky in the future. Having received an excellent education at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Moscow University, he travels a lot, meets interesting people, studies philosophy, literature, music and much more. After some time, he writes several scientific papers and receives a doctorate and a professorship in botany at Moscow University. But his interests were not limited to scientific frameworks. The future rural teacher was engaged in literary creativity, wrote poetry and prose, played the piano to perfection, and was a collector of folklore - folk songs and handicrafts. Khomyakov, Tyutchev, Aksakov, Turgenev, Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy often visited his apartment in Moscow. Sergei Alexandrovich was the author of the libretto for two operas by P.I. Tchaikovsky, who listened to his advice and recommendations and dedicated his first string quartet to Rachinsky. With L.N. Tolstoy Rachinsky had friendly and family relations, since the niece of Sergei Alexandrovich, the daughter of his brother, the rector of the Petrovsky (now Timiryazevsky) Academy Konstantin Aleksandrovich Rachinsky, Maria was the wife of Sergei Lvovich, Tolstoy’s son. The correspondence between Tolstoy and Rachinsky is interesting, full of discussions and disputes about public education.

In 1867, due to prevailing circumstances, Rachinsky left his professorship at Moscow University, and with it all the bustle of metropolitan life, returned to his native Tatevo, opened a school there and devoted himself to teaching and raising peasant children. A few years later, the Smolensk village of Tatevo becomes famous throughout Russia. Education and service to the common people will henceforth become his life’s work.

Professor of botany at Moscow University Sergei Aleksandrovich Rachinsky.

Rachinsky is developing an innovative, unusual for that time, system of teaching children. The combination of theoretical and practical studies becomes the basis of this system. During the lessons, children were taught various crafts needed by peasants. The boys learned carpentry and bookbinding. We worked in the school garden and apiary. Natural history lessons were held in the garden, field and meadow. The pride of the school is the church choir and icon-painting workshop. At his own expense, Rachinsky built a boarding school for children coming from far away and without housing.

N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky "Sunday reading of the Gospel at the Rachinsky public school" 1895. In the picture, second from the right is S.A. Rachinsky.

The children received a varied education. In arithmetic lessons, we not only learned how to add and subtract, but also mastered the elements of algebra and geometry, in an accessible and exciting form for children, often in the form of a game, making amazing discoveries along the way. It is precisely this discovery of number theory that is depicted on the school board in the painting “Mal Calculus.” Sergei Aleksandrovich gave the children interesting problems to solve, and they definitely had to be solved orally, in their heads. He said: “You can’t run to the field for a pencil and paper, you have to be able to count in your head.”

S. A. Rachinsky. Drawing by N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky.

One of the first to go to Rachinsky's school was the poor peasant shepherd Kolya Bogdanov from the village of Shitiki, Belsky district. In this boy, Rachinsky recognized the talent of a painter and helped him develop, taking full charge of his future artistic education. In the future, all the work of the Itinerant artist Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky (1868-1945) will be dedicated to peasant life, school and his beloved teacher.

In the painting “On the Threshold of School,” the artist captured the moment of his first acquaintance with Rachinsky’s school.

N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky "On the threshold of school" 1897.

But what is the fate of the Rachinsky public school in our time? Is the memory of Rachinsky preserved in Tatev, once famous throughout Russia? These questions worried me in June 2000, when I went there for the first time.

And finally, it is in front of me, spread out among green forests and fields, the village of Tatevo in Belsky district, the former Smolensk province, and nowadays classified as part of the Tver region. It was here that the famous Rachinsky school was created, which so influenced the development of public education in pre-revolutionary Russia.

At the entrance to the estate, I saw the remains of a regular park with linden alleys and centuries-old oak trees. A picturesque lake whose clear waters reflect the park. The lake of artificial origin, fed by springs, was dug under S.A. Rachinsky’s grandfather, St. Petersburg Chief of Police Anton Mikhailovich Rachinsky.

Lake on the estate.

And so I approach a dilapidated manor house with columns. Only the skeleton of the majestic building, built at the end of the 18th century, now remains. Restoration of the Trinity Church has begun. Near the church, the grave of Sergei Aleksandrovich Rachinsky is a modest stone slab with the Gospel words inscribed on it at his request: “Man will not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” There, among the family tombstones, his parents, brothers and sisters rest.

A manor's house in Tatev today.

In the fifties, the landowner's house began to gradually collapse. Subsequently, the destruction continued, reaching its full apogee in the seventies of the last century.

Landlord's house in Tatev during Rachinsky's time.

Church in Tatev.

The wooden school building has not survived. But the school was preserved in another two-story brick house, the construction of which was planned by Rachinsky, but carried out soon after his death in 1902. This building, designed by a German architect, is considered unique. Due to a design error, it turned out to be asymmetrical - one wing is missing. Only two more buildings were built according to the same design.

The Rachinsky school building today.

It was nice to know that the school is alive, active and in many ways superior to the capital's schools. In this school, when I arrived there, there were no computers or other modern innovations, but there was a festive, creative atmosphere; teachers and children showed a lot of imagination, freshness, invention and originality. I was pleasantly surprised by the openness, warmth, and cordiality with which the students and teachers, led by the school director, greeted me. The memory of its founder is cherished here. The school museum preserves relics related to the history of the creation of this school. Even the external design of the school and classrooms was bright and unusual, so different from the standard, official design that I had seen in our schools. These are windows and walls originally decorated and painted by the students themselves, and a code of honor invented by them hanging on the wall, and their own school anthem and much more.

Memorial plaque on the wall of the school.

Within the walls of the Tatev school. These stained glass windows were made by the school students themselves.

At the Tatev school.

At the Tatev school.

At the Tatev school today.

Museum N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky in the former manager's house.

N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky. Self-portrait.

All the characters in the painting “Oral Account” are painted from life and in them the residents of the village of Tatevo recognize their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. I want to talk a little about how the lives of some of the boys depicted in the picture turned out. Local old-timers who knew some of them personally told me about this.

S.A. Rachinsky with his students on the threshold of a school in Tatev. June 1891.

N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky "Oral arithmetic in the Rachinsky public school" 1895.

Many people think that the artist depicted himself in the boy depicted in the foreground of the picture - in fact, this is not so, this boy is Vanya Rostunov. Ivan Evstafievich Rostunov was born in 1882 in the village of Demidovo into a family of illiterate peasants. Only at the age of thirteen I entered the Rachinsky public school. Subsequently, he worked on a collective farm as an accountant, saddler, and postman. Lacking a mail bag, before the war he carried letters in a cap. Rostunov had seven children. They all studied at Tatev secondary school. Of these, one was a veterinarian, another was an agronomist, another was a military man, one was a livestock specialist’s daughter, and another daughter was a teacher and director of the Tatev school. One son died during the Great Patriotic War, and another, upon returning from the war, soon died from the consequences of injuries received there. Until recently, Rostunov’s granddaughter worked as a teacher at the Tatev school.

The boy standing on the far left in boots and a purple shirt is Dmitry Danilovich Volkov (1879-1966), who became a doctor. During the Civil War he worked as a surgeon in a military hospital. During the Great Patriotic War he was a surgeon in a partisan unit. In peacetime, he treated the residents of Tatev. Dmitry Danilovich had four children. One of his daughters was a partisan in the same detachment as her father and died heroically at the hands of the Germans. Another son was a participant in the war. The other two children are a pilot and a teacher. The grandson of Dmitry Danilovich was the director of the state farm.

The fourth from the left, the boy depicted in the picture is Andrei Petrovich Zhukov, he became a teacher, worked as a teacher in one of the schools created by Rachinsky and located a few kilometers from Tatev.

Andrei Olkhovnikov (second from the right in the picture) also became a prominent teacher.

The boy on the far right is Vasily Ovchinnikov, a participant in the first Russian revolution.

The boy, daydreaming and with his hand behind his head, is Grigory Molodenkov from Tatev.

Sergei Kupriyanov from the village of Gorelki whispers in the teacher’s ear. He was the most talented in mathematics.

The tall boy, lost in thought at the blackboard, is Ivan Zeltin from the village of Pripeche.

The permanent exhibition of the Tatev Museum tells about these and other residents of Tatev. There is a section dedicated to the genealogy of each Tatev family. Merits and achievements of grandfathers, great-grandfathers, fathers and mothers. The achievements of the new generation of students of the Tatev school are presented.

Peering into the open faces of today's Tatev schoolchildren, so similar to the faces of their great-grandfathers from the painting by N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky, I thought that maybe the source of spirituality on which the Russian pedagogue ascetic, my ancestor Sergei Alexandrovich Rachinsky so strongly relied, may not have completely died out.