Assistant to the Tsars: The Life and Art of Mikhail Lomonosov

Lomonosov determined the development of Russian science and literature: such people are said to be the salt of the Russian land. A village boy, he began his education in a religious school, continued it in the gymnasium at the Academy of Sciences and graduated from a German university. Lomonosov became Russia’s first poet and made a brilliant career in the Academy of Sciences. But for his Kholmogory countrymen and the capital's patrons who helped the gifted young man, his rise would have been impossible. His unique talent enabled Lomonosov to realize the Petrian project almost on his own and determine the ways of the Russian Enlightenment and to become, in Pushkin’s words, ‘an assistant to the Tsars.’ The present time is reminiscent of the 18th century - reforms are again underway in Russia, and the example of the successful fate in science that Lomonosov gave us may be useful for Russian boys and girls. A children's writer, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences and a member of the Academy of Sciences and the Physics Department of Moscow State University, the author presents from the modern point of view not only the vicissitudes of the fate but also the main achievements of the great Russian scientist, pioneer and poet.