How an Orthodox Christian Father Inspired His Children to Love Learning - The Bogolyubov Family

Originally appeared at: Pravoslavie.ru

Where can our children get a good, quality education? How to raise children as believers? What makes up the notorious and elusive “comprehensive personal development”? We are not the first in human history to encounter these problems. And before us, there were parents on earth who quite successfully resolved the same issues.

In biographies and especially in autobiographies of interesting, outstanding people, we can see how that “comprehensively developed personality” gradually grows out of a small child. We can see how a person is formed from tiny scraps, from random circumstances and purposeful pedagogical efforts .

The Bogolyubovs

I have already talked about the education of the future academician I.I. Artobolevsky, son of the new martyr [1]And now I want to remember the story of another amazing family - the Bogolyubov family. This story itself taught me a lot and inspired me to a lot.

The results of the “educational policy” in this family are impressive:

  • first child: Nikolai Nikolaevich Bogolyubov (1909–1992), Soviet mathematician and theoretical physicist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences, founder of scientific schools in nonlinear mechanics and theoretical physics;
  • second child: Alexey Nikolaevich Bogolyubov (1911–2004), mathematician, mechanic, historian of science, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR;
  • third child: Mikhail Nikolaevich Bogolyubov (1918–2010), Iranian linguist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

And even more important is that the Bogolyubovs grew up as believing Orthodox Christians. And this was during the most difficult years of persecution of the Church, and this was “in the thick of” public life! So, the eldest son, academician N.N. Bogolyubov, being the head of the department of theoretical physics at the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, regularly took communion [2]And in the late 1980s, he, the head of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, helped return the temple to the Church.

We can learn about how these boys were raised “first-hand” - from the memories of Alexei Nikolaevich Bogolyubov about his older brother[3].

Of course, these are memories of only one child from this family. In addition, we will not be able to see everything - after all, not everything can be tracked and recorded, even when such a task is set. We cannot apply everything to the upbringing and education of our own children. But of course, nothing stops us from drawing some conclusions for ourselves. In any case, this story is the real experience of living people.

***

Priest Nikolai Mikhailovich Bogolyubov

So, there lived in pre-revolutionary Kiev a priest Nikolai Mikhailovich Bogolyubov (1872–1934)[4]Rector of the Church at the Kiev Imperial University of St. Vladimir; teacher of the Law of God, geography, Russian language, didactics; philosopher. In the future - a confessor who spent several years in Soviet prisons. Member of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. Student of the Archbishop, then Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky). Bishop Anthony even presented Father Nicholas with his “doctoral” cross - the insignia of a doctor of theology.

When the father of the family began teaching at the university, he was given a three-room apartment. After the revolution, the Bogolyubov family lived in a rural house. And then the dispossessed priest wandered with his family in strange corners, without a fixed place of residence. Future academicians grew up in such living conditions.

Faith of scientists

That scientists are often believers and churchgoers is, of course, not surprising[5]But the fact that Father Nikolai Bogolyubov managed to convey his faith to his children, to convey it in such a way that it remained for the rest of his life, seems like a feat and a miracle.

From the memoirs of Alexei Nikolaevich Bogolyubov, we learn that the Bogolyubov children, already in childhood, were keen on studying sacred history. I went to church with my parents. They were completely immersed in Orthodox culture - for example, at Christmas, future academicians “glorified Christ”[6].

How exactly did Father Nikolai teach his sons faith? Let us immediately say the obvious: he himself was not only a priest, not only a theologian - but also a deeply religious person. That is, the main educator and teacher of future academicians was himself truly a Christian.

And Father Nikolai not only served in the church himself, but took his children with him. For example, he will take his sons by the hands and walk with them, across the field, to the temple. And he talks to them along the way.

The children served their father-priest during services. And the priest also introduced his sons to those bishops with whom he himself communicated and with whom he served[7]It is difficult to say exactly how these meetings took place; Alexey Nikolaevich did not cover these topics in detail. But in his memoirs, he said that the memory of these meetings, the memory of such services was preserved by the sons of Father Nikolai forever.

Father's example

Father Nikolai was a busy man: serving as a priest, teaching, and scientific work. But he tried to spend more time with his children - for example, he worked a lot at home. His work was not easy, requiring seemingly solitude - for example, working on a doctoral dissertation. But Father Nikolai set up a workplace for himself in his apartment, in the corner of the common dining room.

He worked - and the children saw that their dad was working. The children saw that work, scientific work exists, work is interesting, work is important.

Here's how Nikolai's father's son Alexey writes about it:

“The sons’ interests developed under the direct influence of their father’s knowledge. They see their father reading an English book. “Dad, do you understand everything?” - "Yes!" This means that they need to understand everything, and interest in languages ​​grows on its own. Then an interest in writing arises. Dad sits and writes a book (he was working on his doctoral dissertation...). Both sons, the eldest was about seven at the time, also decided to write books: they sewed themselves a small notebook and perched themselves in different corners of their father’s office”[8].

I have already told [9],

how these boys of six and seven years old wrote their first “scientific” works: they copied texts from the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia. Moreover, the elder taught the younger:

“Leshenka, what are you doing?

- Yes, I’m writing ancient history!

- How are you writing? You can’t write like that, because you’re just rewriting it, which means it won’t be yours! What you need to do is this: take three books, open them and rewrite them like this: take a word from one, take a word from another, take a word from a third. Then it will be yours!”

And this first “scientific” work of future scientists begins with a simple thing: “Dad sits and writes a book.”

The father himself was passionate, striving for education, self-education, and work. And he involved his sons in this self-education - at least simply by working with them, next to them, communicating with them while working, encouraging them. Just as he involved children in his church ministry, he also involved them in his scientific work.

And the children also saw how during the difficult years of the revolution, when power was constantly changing in Kyiv, the streets were shelled, their father “continued to work on research ... on the philosophy of religion.”

The opportunity to observe the work, especially scientific work, of parents - beloved parents, “significant adults” - has a truly serious impact on the formation of a person’s personality. A person “committed to education”[10].

It is the aspiration of parents for education - education in the broadest sense - that gives rise to this same aspiration in children. In such a situation, the apple will probably not fall far from the tree.

Elementary education

Father Nikolai Bogolyubov planned to send his children to the 1st Alexander Classical Gymnasium. But at the same time, parents did “preparation for school” and primary education with their children themselves, at home.

Alexey Nikolaevich writes about it this way:

“The parents taught them: the father taught his sons German, French, and, somewhat later, English. He developed in them a love for languages, preparing them to enter another world, unfamiliar at first. He taught all subjects, including penmanship. Later, he himself prepared his sons to enter the gymnasium... Mother... taught her sons to read music and play the piano..."[11].

This is how parents purposefully, consciously, and organizedly opened up the world of science, the world of knowledge to their children. Thus, education itself became an interesting and significant thing in life for children. Because they were taught in their own home by their dear and beloved parents.

But Father Nikolai did not at all contrast home education with school education. When his eldest son Nikolai turned 8 years old, Father Nikolai sent him to a preparatory class at the gymnasium. A year later, nine-year-old Nikolai - his family name was Kotey - moved to first grade (approximately the fifth grade of the current high school), and eight-year-old Alexey entered preparatory school.

Basic secondary education

When Nikolai finished the second grade of the gymnasium (Alexey, respectively, the first), Archpriest Nikolai Bogolyubov and his family were forced to leave Kiev - from street shelling, “hunger, cold ... from the tyrants with whom the people’s power was so rich.” Now the university teacher continued serving at a parish in a distant village. In this village there was a seven-year school where self-taught enthusiasts taught. “Given their level of knowledge, the Bogolyubov brothers were accepted into the sixth and seventh grades of the school. It was in the fall of 1920,” recalls Alexey Nikolaevich. Alexei, who was accepted into the sixth grade of a rural school, was 10 years old, Nikolai, a seventh-grader, was 11.

This is how Alexey Nikolaevich writes about this school, remembering his brother Nikolai:

“The fact that he became a scientist was, of course, a considerable merit of this rural school. By the way, the certificate of completion of the seven-year school was the only document of education that he received throughout his life.”

The disorganization of the rural school during the Civil War turned out, oddly enough, to be a big plus in the education of children. It seems that the main task of the teachers was simply to preserve the education of children in this difficult time for our entire land, and they did it as best they could, but clearly conscientiously. Education here was so unsystematized that the eldest son of Father Nikolai, after finishing the seventh grade... went back to the seventh grade of the same school. To learn a little more. And this is “on the advice of my father.”

During this time of famine, Father Nikolai combined his service as a parish priest with hard agricultural labor in order to somehow feed his family. But this work itself again became an occasion for communication with children, another form of their upbringing and education. This time labor training: for example,

the father “taught his sons to thresh bread with flails. This operation was carried out by the father and his three sons, moving in a circle...” recalls Alexey Nikolaevich.

The children looked after the cattle and the garden. And all this - together with the parents.

Although the children studied at school, Father Nikolai taught them at home. It was organized, systematic home schooling:

“Despite the difficulties and lack of textbooks, he continued to teach his sons languages. He introduced them to Latin and Greek and continued to teach them French,” recalls Alexey Nikolaevich.

Many years later, the eldest son Kotya, already a famous scientist, worked for the benefit of science and the country in closed Arzamas-16. One of my colleagues once looked in on the priest’s son while he was listening to the radio in some unknown language. It turned out - in Hebrew. During the years of the civil war, in famine, in illness and labor, Father Nikolai really helped the children master ancient languages. This is how not just specialist scientists grew up, but also erudites, polyglots, those same “comprehensively educated people.” People of great culture.

Note: just like the Artobolevskys’ father, the Bogolyubovs’ father worked with the children at home “in parallel” with schooling. Both Father Artobolevsky and Father Bogolyubov did not help the children do their schoolwork - they themselves were “teachers” and “leaders” of their children’s education.

Becoming a mathematician

Bogolyubov N.N., theoretical physicist, mathematician, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences

What was the general approach to the education of children in this family, what was the relationship between school and family education, is well illustrated by the study of mathematics by the future mathematical genius - the eldest son of the Bogolyubovs.

In the preparatory class of the gymnasium (primary school level), the unique abilities of the future great mathematician and theoretical physicist N.N. Bogolyubov not only did not show up in any way, but even “there were some problems with arithmetic, and one day the teacher told him: “You, Kolya, will not make mathematics!” This remark is a consolation to every parent struggling with “underachieving” children.

Then, in a rural seven-year school, barefoot and hungry 11-year-old N.N. Bogolyubov followed the example and advice of a self-taught teacher, a lawyer: he simply solved all the problems “from the famous Malinin-Burenin problem book.” Then “Kotya begged” from the algebra teacher “a problem book on algebra by Shaposhnikov and Walter and re-solved all the problems. This was the second stage,” says Alexey Nikolaevich.

Thus, Nikolai Bogolyubov’s passion for mathematics was based on the child’s independent work; the school in this case served as support for this independent work, for the work and passion of this particular child. A very, very important thing. This point can be seen in most of the studied biographies of great scientists and outstanding people: not special special schools, not multi-story programs, not the number of hours in the schedule, and certainly not sophisticated electronic gadgets allow a child to become interested in a subject, get carried away by it, figure it out, discover the beauty of work , the beauty of science, the love of knowledge, the thirst for education...

And at the next stage in the study of mathematics by the future great mathematician, the father-priest again plays an important role. A.N. Bogolyubov writes:

“Apparently, it was Nikolai’s father who was the first to notice Nikolai’s extraordinary talent... My father decided to study with him mathematical analysis, which he himself had once been interested in. The year 1922 began, and Nikolai was already 12 years old. Father got from someone two Grenville textbooks on differential and integral calculus. Despite the fact that he himself had never seriously studied mathematics, now, having nothing in his specialty, he decided to study analysis himself... He began to study Grenville and at the same time tried to explain to Nikolai the basics of mathematical analysis. It soon turned out that the student quickly surpassed the teacher.”

Father Nikolai was not a mathematician. But he still began to teach his son - simply because the priest was truly attentive to his son. And he truly strived to help the child, as they say, “unleash his potential.” The father-teacher here doesn’t even teach - but together with the child he masters a new and very difficult subject.

But teaching a child a subject that you don’t know yourself is not only difficult. This also requires humility. In this situation, Father Nikolai allows the student - his son - to see his own inability. But at the same time, Father Nikolai showed his son his desire for education.

We complain that we don’t have time, that the textbooks are bad, that there is no money for tutors. And Father Nikolai served in the village church, grinding flour himself to feed his wife and children. Hunger, need: the children were barefoot and naked - there was literally nothing to wear to school, there was only one shoe for two sons, and that one was a woman's... And the father of the family finds time to study mathematics with the child. Integral calculus...

And then the opportunity arose to return to Kyiv. So the Bogolyubovs found themselves back in their hometown. As a priest, Father Nikolai could no longer teach at the university (although he was offered to resign his priesthood on condition). But the relationship with the university teachers remained. And taking advantage of this, Father Nikolai Bogolyubov took his Kotya to the university. And here the cream of Russian science has gathered. Those who were not shot, those who could not or did not want to emigrate, preferred the calmer Kyiv to the bloody Petrograd. Therefore, Father Nikolai managed to introduce his son to Academician D.A. Grave, a major representative of the St. Petersburg mathematical school, who happened to be in the city at that time.

The priest thought that his teenage boy was quite prepared to enter college. After all, by the age of 13, Kotya “had worked through a number of textbooks in Russian, English and French, studied the five-volume treatise by O.D. Khvolson in physics". By the way, my father’s studies in languages ​​responded here.

But the boy did not go to college. It turned out that Kotya already had knowledge no less than a graduate of the university’s mathematics department. And D.A. Grave told priest Nikolai Bogolyubov that “there was no point in Nikolai attending lectures at any higher educational institution; he needed to work with him individually.” At the age of 15, the boy defended his postgraduate work - what is now called a candidate's thesis. In April 1930, the general meeting of the Physics and Mathematics Department of the VUAN awarded Nikolai Nikolaevich Bogolyubov the academic degree of Doctor of Mathematical Sciences.

Educational space

Of course, Nikolai Nikolaevich Bogolyubov is a genius. But this genius had to reveal itself, manifest itself, grow. In addition, two more prominent scientists grew up in this family. So we are not talking about the phenomenon of Nikolai Bogolyubov - but about the phenomenon of the Bogolyubov family. And since we have the opportunity to see the “educational trajectory” of only the eldest son, let’s see what it is.

The basis here is the educational space of the family in which the child grows up. Where culture, book culture, scientific culture are the background of life, an organic part of life at home.

The basis here is also the example of parents. The example is, let's say, active. And at the core is a formed attachment to parents. And one more banal thing: here children spend a lot of time with their parents.

That is, the amount of time that children spend in this very educational space, with these parents, in this atmosphere. So this space, this example could really influence the children.

And besides this elusive, but such an important atmosphere, there is also a very specific thing: the conscious work of parents. When a parent perceives himself as a teacher. After all, this is where the child’s perception of his parents as teachers begins. We see how a busy father of a family sits down with a small child at a desk and carefully, systematically works with him. And then we see how an even busier and at the same time literally poor father is doing the same thing. He works with children - and thus sets the tone for the child’s entire education, no matter where and how this child studies. Sets the attitude towards study and work.

Undoubtedly, it was this attitude that turned out to be more important than the subjects that Father Nikolai taught the children. Although the subjects turned out to be important, and knowledge is important. But what is more important is attitude. This is exactly what is missing for those children who graduate from expensive gymnasiums, study with tutors around the clock - and at the end of the day the mountain gives birth to a tiny mouse: an indifferent, indifferent, uncultured and unattached, ugly young man...

Where did the future academician Bogolyubov study? At the gymnasium for two or three years. A couple more years at a rural school. Then there were also some courses. Lessons from private teachers, sometimes from excellent teachers. Now here, now there, now with textbooks, now without them. There was no exclusive home education here, and there was no cult of home education. But the house in this family was the place where children were educated.

Education began at home. Home education has always accompanied education in educational institutions. Not only the father was the teacher of his children. But among teachers at every stage of education, my father was a teacher too.

But in this education of the Bogolyubov children, the most important role of the father was not even that he taught his children, not that he sat at the desk with them. And the fact is that he directed this education. The fact that he put together all the disparate pieces of his children's education. He built all the elements of training, upbringing, and education. With love and attention, he led each of his children along that very “individual educational trajectory” to that very “realization of creative abilities.” The father carefully and sensitively supervised the self-education of his children, created conditions for the child’s continuous self-education , and supported the children’s desire for education. In the most difficult conditions...

Here's the story. Family history. History of cultural attitudes towards children. Attitudes towards education. A relationship that has borne fruit. A relationship that we can not only marvel at, but also learn from.

You can buy Anna Saprykina's book  "A Mother's Notes"  here:

Books by Anna Saprykina on the website of the publishing house "Free Wanderer"

[1] See:  Saprykina Anna.  Parents and children’s education: the experience of a new martyr who raised a Soviet academician //  http://www.pravoslavie.ru/106091.html.

[2] See: Academician Bogolyubov: “Irreligious physicists can be counted on one hand!” //  http://www.pravmir.ru/akademik-bogolyubov-nereligioznyx-fizikov-mozhno-pereschitat-po-palcam/.

[3] Bogolyubov A.N.  N.N. Bogolyubov. Life. Creation. Dubna, 1996.

[4] You can read about Father Nikolai Bogolyubov here:  http://www.pravenc.ru/text/149493.html.

[5] Of course, a lot has been written on this topic. From the latter, we can probably highlight the book by Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Deacon Sergei Krivovichev, “The Science of Believers or the Faith of Scientists: The 20th Century” (M., 2015).

[6] Hereinafter all information about N.N.’s childhood. Bogolyubov and his brothers are given according to the book:  Bogolyubov A.N.  N.N. Bogolyubov. Life. Creation. Dubna, 1996. Also below, all quotations in quotation marks are also from this book (1st, 2nd and 3rd chapters).

[7] For example, see:  Bogolyubov A.N.  N.N. Bogolyubov. Life. Creation. S. 4, 18, etc.

[8] Ibid. P. 14.

[9] Saprykina Anna.  Home library as an idea and pedagogical method //  http://www.pravoslavie.ru/96655.html#_ednref3.

[10] We can see how important this example of parents is in the memoirs of other scientists and thinkers. For example:  Sakharov A.D.  Memories //  http://ihst.ru/projects/sohist/memory/sakhmem/content.htmSikorsky,  Igor  Ivan.  The Story of the Winged-S: Late Developments and Recent Photographs of the Helicopter, an Autobiography. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1967. pp. 18–19, etc.

[11] Bogolyubov A.N.  N.N. Bogolyubov. Life. Creation. P. 13. All further quotes are taken from this book (1st, 2nd and 3rd chapters)..

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