This man was an outstanding mathematician, philosopher, theologian, art critic, prose writer, engineer, linguist and national thinker. Fate has prepared for him world fame and a tragic fate. After him were the works born of his mighty mind. The name of this person is Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky.
Childhood years of the future scientist
On January 21, 1882, a railway engineer Alexander Ivanovich Florensky and his wife Olga Pavlovna had a son, who was named Pavel. The family lived in the town of Yevlakh, Elizavetpol province. Now it is the territory of Azerbaijan. In addition to him, five more children will subsequently appear in the family.
Recalling his early years, Pavel Florensky will write that from childhood he had a tendency to notice and analyze everything unusual, beyond the scope of everyday life. In everything, he was inclined to see hidden manifestations of the "spirituality of being and immortality." As for the latter, the very thought of it was perceived as something natural and not subject to doubt. By his own admission, the scientist, it was children's observations that subsequently formed the basis of his religious and philosophical beliefs.
University studies
Having graduated from the goldmedal at the gymnasium in Tiflis, seventeen-year-old Pavel Florensky leaves for Moscow and becomes a student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow University. In his student years, he closely communicates with representatives of the progressive Russian youth of those years. Among his acquaintances are Balmont, Bryusov, Z. Gippius, A. Blok and others whose names entered the history of Russian culture.
But at the end of his studies, he felt a clear lack of knowledge gained at the university. What further plans did Florensky build? Paul understood that the limits of the natural sciences were too narrow for him. The picture of the Universe formed in his mind defied rational explanation. In search of new truths, he enters the Theological Academy.
The Spiritual Academy
In the walls of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, he born the idea of synthesis of natural sciences with religious postulates. According to him, secular culture, church and art should form a single whole. After graduating from the Academy in 1914, Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky received the title of Master of Theology.
Even within the walls of the academy, he was ordained to the priesthood. Here, in Sergiev Posad, until 1921, the young priest Father Pavel Florensky carried out his pastoral ministry. The scope of his studies during his studies was very wide. At the academy, he simultaneously studied, taught, lectured, and edited an academic journal.
The first years after the revolution
The revolution was a severe shock for him. By his own admission, he took it as an apocalypse. The political convictions shared by Pavel Florensky can be called theocratic monarchism. He will set them out in detail at the end of his life in a work to be written in the camp shortly before his death.
In the first years after the revolution, art criticism became his main activity. Pavel Florensky made a lot of efforts to save the historical and artistic values of the Lavra. He had to literally convince the poorly educated representatives of the new government of the need to preserve many historical monuments.
Work in Soviet institutions
Possessing deep knowledge of technical sciences obtained at the university, Pavel Florensky became a professor at VKhUTEMAS and at the same time took part in the development of the GOELRO plan. During the twenties he wrote a number of fundamental scientific works. In this work he was assisted by Trotsky, which later played a fatal role in Florensky's life.
Despite the repeated opportunity to leave Russia, Pavel Alexandrovich did not follow the example of many representatives of the Russian intelligentsia who left the country. He was one of the first who tried to combine church service and cooperation with Soviet institutions.
Arrest and imprisonment
The turning point in his life came in 1928. The scientist was exiled to Nizhny Novgorod, but soon returned to Moscow. By the beginning of the thirties, there was a period of persecution of the scientist in Soviet print media. In February 1933 he was arrested andfive months later, by a court decision, he was sentenced to ten years in prison under the infamous fifty-eighth article.
The place where he was to serve his sentence was a camp in Eastern Siberia, named as if in a mockery of the prisoners "Free". Here, behind the barbed wire, the scientific department of the BUMLAG administration was created. Scientists worked in it, who were imprisoned, like thousands of other Soviet people, in this ruthless era of Stalinist repressions. Together with them, the prisoner Florensky Pavel conducted scientific work.
In February 1934, he was transferred to another camp, located in Skovorodino. A permafrost station was located here, where scientific work was carried out to study permafrost. Taking part in them, Pavel Alexandrovich wrote several scientific papers that de alt with issues related to construction on permafrost.
The end of a scientist's life
In August 1934, Florensky was unexpectedly placed in a camp isolation ward, and a month later he was escorted to the Solovetsky camp. And here he was engaged in scientific work. Exploring the process of extracting iodine from seaweed, the scientist made more than a dozen patented scientific discoveries. In November 1937, by decision of the Special Troika of the NKVD, Florensky was sentenced to death.
The exact date of death is unknown. The date of December 15, 1943, indicated in the notice sent to relatives, was false. This outstanding figure of Russian science, whomade an invaluable contribution to the most diverse fields of knowledge, on the Levashovo wasteland near Leningrad, in a common unmarked grave. In one of his last letters, he bitterly wrote that the truth is that for everything that you give the world good, retribution awaits in the form of suffering and persecution.
Pavel Florensky, whose biography is very similar to the biographies of many Russian scientists and cultural figures of that time, was posthumously rehabilitated. And fifty years after his death, the last book of the scientist was published. In it, he reflected on the state structure of future years.
