This almost forgotten phrase is now being heard again. Many people are interested in this name, asking who invented Ilyich's light bulb? Let's try to figure it out.
About incandescent bulbs
Remember the children's riddle about the pear that you can't eat? So this is about her, about an ordinary incandescent lamp, which is still often called in honor of V. I. Lenin. Who invented Ilyich's light bulb? Well, certainly not the leader of the world proletariat! Although incandescent light bulbs are almost 150 years old, the question of their inventor is not so easy to answer.
The principle of operation of an incandescent lamp is as follows. There is a glass bulb, in it - a wire emitter (usually tungsten). A current flows through the wire, it heats up, electrical energy is converted into light energy. Let there be light!
Work on the creation of such a device from the middle of the 19th century was carried out all over the world, including in Russia. Scientists from many countries, experimenting with materials and shapes of the spiral, have created lamps that are to varying degrees close to the one that is well known to the modern consumer. At the same time, inventions were usually patented, and there are probably about a dozen authors of such patents. Who is the real author? More often in the westothers call the American Edison the inventor of the incandescent lamp. In Russia, the names of Lodygin and Yablochkov are remembered, considering them to be the authors of an invention so important to everyone. By the way, we started talking about Lodygin not so long ago: in the USSR they preferred not to remember this surname. Indeed, the most talented electrical engineer did not accept the revolution of 1917, he emigrated to the United States, where he died in 1923. But what does Lenin have to do with all these learned stories?
About the village of Kashino
This name is rather pathetic, propagandistic - Ilyich's light bulb. Photos still preserved in old archives help to recreate the typical village atmosphere of the 20s of the last century. A deaf Russian village, dirt, darkness, backwardness - and suddenly the light comes on in the huts. It's nothing that a lamp without a lampshade hangs wretchedly from the ceiling and barely smolders. All the same, this is a great blessing, this is the hope for progress, for the best. How not to perpetuate the name of the one to whom the people owe their introduction to civilization?
The mention of Lenin's personality in the name of the lighting device arose after the leader's trip to the village of Kashino in 1920 to open a local power plant. The villagers, previously inspired by his fiery speech at the Komsomol congress, decided to electrify the village at their own expense. No sooner said than done! With the help of unused telegraph wires and a dynamo brought from Moscow, the local power grid was built on their own.
And then the arrival of the leader in Kashino, his conversations with the peasants, speech at the rallywidely covered in the Soviet press. There was a big propaganda campaign. The term "light bulb of Ilyich" has firmly entered the lexicon of the Soviet people.
What is GOELRO?
In the first post-revolutionary years, the electrical theme was perhaps the most priority. At the beginning of 1920, a state commission for the electrification of Russia - GOELRO - was created, designed to deal with the problem. Later, they started talking about the GOELRO plan, which provided not only for the electrification of the country, but also for the development of its economy as a whole. "Ilyich's light bulb" is a kind of symbol of this plan.
There are many white spots in the history of both the idea itself and its implementation. According to some reports, plans for large-scale electrification of the country were considered back in tsarist times, and only the high costs and difficulties of the First World War (1914-1918) did not allow them to come to grips with their implementation. The country was able to really start solving the problem only in December 1920, after the approval of the GOELRO plan at the 9th All-Russian Congress of Soviets.
Plans and realities
The plan adopted at the congress provided not only electrification, but also the arrangement of Russia as a whole. The words of the leader served as the motto: "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country." For all the utopianism of his communist ideas, Lenin was well aware of the importance of energy for state development.
The ambitious Bolshevik plan was successfully fulfilled and exceeded. Were laidnew factories, industrial territories (Donbass, Kuzbass) were developed, and, of course, a number of new power plants were built, which made it possible to create a kind of energy frame of the USSR. A powerful impetus was given to the development of transport and communications, large-scale construction projects arose in a number of regions of the country. It is believed that it was the GOELRO plan that formed the basis of industrialization, which made it possible to bring the country to a fundamentally different level of development. And yet, even in the 80s of the last century, there were many settlements in the USSR where the "light bulb of Ilyich" was still just a dream.
Conclusion
The "revolutionary" name of a conventional lamp has not been relevant for many years, but recently it has sounded again. The reason is the emergence of a new generation of lighting devices. Halogen, fluorescent, energy-saving, LED - what kind of lamps can not be found on sale now! In order not to get lost in this abundance, appropriate terminology is important. "Ilyich's lamp" is a good old lamp familiar to all of us. It is more correct, of course, to speak differently: an incandescent lamp. It's just boring. And why neglect names that have been popular for decades?
