This man was an outstanding mathematician, philosopher, theologian, art critic, prose writer, engineer, linguist and thinker of a national scale. Fate prepared for him world fame and a tragic fate. After him remained the works born of his mighty mind. The name of this person is Florensky Pavel Alexandrovich.
Children's years of the future scientist
On January 21, 1882, a son, named Pavel, was born to engineer-engineer Alexander Ivanovich Florensky and his wife Olga Pavlovna. The family lived in the town of Yevlakh of the Elizabethpol province. Today it is the territory of Azerbaijan. In addition to him, five more children will subsequently appear in the family.
Remembering his early years, Pavel Florensky writes that since childhood he had a tendency to notice and analyze everything unusual that goes beyond the scope of everyday life. In everything he was inclined to see the hidden manifestations of "the spirituality of being and immortality." As for the latter, the very thought of him was perceived as something natural and not subject to doubt. By the scientist’s own admission, it was children's observations that later formed the basis of his religious and philosophical convictions.
Studying at the University
Having graduated from the gymnasium in Tiflis with a gold medal , seventeen-year-old Pavel Florensky leaves for Moscow and becomes a student at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Moscow University. In his student years, he closely communicates with representatives of the advanced 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 after graduation, he felt a clear lack of knowledge obtained at the university. What further plans did Florensky build? Paul understood that the framework of the natural sciences was close to him. The picture of the Universe in his mind did not lend itself to a rational explanation. In search of new truths, he enters the Theological Academy.
Theological Academy
Within the walls of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra , he gives birth to ideas for the synthesis of natural sciences with religious tenets. According to him, secular culture, church and art should form a single whole. After graduating from the Academy in 1914, Florensky Pavel Alexandrovich received the title of Master of Theology.
Even at the academy, he was ordained a priest. Here, in Sergiev Posad, until 1921, the young priest Father Pavel Florensky carried his pastoral service. The scope of his studies during his studies was very wide. At the academy, he simultaneously studied, and taught, and lectured, and edited an academic journal.
The first years after the revolution
The revolution was a terrible shock to him. By his own admission, he took it as an apocalypse. The political beliefs shared by Pavel Florensky can be called theocratic monarchism. He will describe them in detail at the end of his life in a work that will be written in the camp shortly before his death.
In the first years after the revolution, art became his main activity. Pavel Florensky put a lot of effort to save the historical and artistic values of the Lavra. He had to literally convince poorly educated representatives of the new government of the need to preserve many historical monuments.
Work in Soviet institutions
Possessing a deep knowledge of the 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. Throughout the twenties he wrote a number of capital scientific works. In this work, he was assisted by Trotsky, which subsequently played a fateful role in the life of Florensky.
Despite the opportunity to leave Russia repeatedly, Pavel Alexandrovich did not follow the example of many representatives of the Russian intelligentsia who left the country. He was one of the first to attempt 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 was soon returned to Moscow. The period of the persecution of a scientist in Soviet print media dates back to the early thirties. In February 1933, he was arrested and five months later by a court decision sentenced to ten years in prison under the infamous fifty-eighth article.
The place where he was to serve his sentence was assigned a camp in Eastern Siberia, which was called, as it were, a mockery of prisoners “Free”. Here, behind the barbed wire, the scientific department of BUMLAG management 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 Pavel Florensky conducted scientific work.
In February 1934 he was transferred to another camp located in Skovorodino. The permafrost station was located here, on which scientific work on the study of permafrost was carried out. Taking part in them, Pavel Aleksandrovich wrote several scientific papers that addressed issues related to permafrost construction.
End of life of a scientist
In August 1934, Florensky was unexpectedly placed in a camp isolator, and a month later escorted to the Solovetsky camp. And here he was engaged in scientific work. Studying the process of extracting iodine from seaweed, the scientist made more than a dozen patented scientific discoveries. In November 1937, by the decision of the Special NKVD Troika, 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, who made an invaluable contribution to various fields of knowledge, was buried in the Levashova Heath near Leningrad, in a common nameless grave. In one of his last letters, he wrote bitterly that the truth is that for everything that you give the world good, there will be reckoning in the form of suffering and persecution.
Pavel Florensky, whose biography is very similar to the biographies of many Russian figures of science and culture of that time, was posthumously rehabilitated. And fifty years after his death, the last book of the scientist saw the light. In it, he reflected on the state system of future years.