The Tsar's village is for us. We are still the same: the whole world is foreign to us; Fatherland to us Tsarskoe Selo

Now our education is undergoing changes, the implementation of the “Bologna system” continues, the first results of which should have been achieved by 2010. But both students and schoolchildren continue to surprise parents with knowledge that is not at all fundamental. In connection with the results that our attempts to wedge into the European educational process bring, we involuntarily think about the role of education in a person’s life, about the role of the school in which a child spends a significant part of his life and is fed with a variety of information and influences.

There are not many educational institutions whose good name is familiar to the general public; and it’s not at all easy to remember such an institution, the memory of which is alive many years after its cessation of existence. However, on October 19, we remember the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, which went down in the history of our Fatherland - raising the “sun of Russian poetry.”

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Lyceum. According to the new style, this is October 31, however, thanks to Alexander Pushkin’s poem (that’s where the greatness and power of words lie!), it is not possible to transfer the date to our so-called “new style” introduced by the Bolsheviks.

The Lyceum was founded by Emperor Alexander I, about whom Pushkin said in his memorable poem “October 19”:

“Hurray, our king! So! Let's drink to the king.

He is a human! they are ruled by the moment.

He is a slave to rumors, doubts and passions;

Let us forgive him his wrongful persecution:

He took Paris, he founded the Lyceum."

The decree on the founding of the Lyceum was signed in August 1810, and the first enrollment took place in 1811. Thus, a higher privileged closed educational institution was created for children from noble families. It was assumed that this is where the emperor’s younger brothers, Grand Dukes Nicholas and Mikhail, would study. This circumstance became decisive in choosing the location of the educational institution: it was placed in a four-story wing of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, specially rebuilt by the architect V. Stasov. The palace was connected to the Lyceum building by a special covered passage.

Soon, the future director V. Malinovsky received petitions from thirty-eight families who expressed a desire for their children to study at the new Lyceum.

The course of study at the Lyceum lasted 6 years. Over the years, lyceum students were asked to study the following sciences: moral (God's law, ethics, logic, jurisprudence, political economy); verbal (Russian, Latin, French, German literature and languages, rhetoric); historical (Russian and general history, physical geography); physical and mathematical (mathematics, principles of physics and cosmography, mathematical geography, statistics). The curriculum also included fine arts and gymnastic exercises (penmanship, drawing, dancing, fencing, horse riding, swimming). Graduates received the rights of university graduates and civil ranks of grades 14-9. For those wishing to enter military service, additional military training was provided, and they were granted the rights of graduates of the Corps of Pages.

Ivan Pushchin describes the daily routine of a lyceum student this way: “We got up at the bell at 6 o’clock, got dressed, and went to prayer in the hall. We read the morning and evening prayers out loud in turn. From 7 to 9 o'clock - class. At 9 - tea; walk - up to 10. From 10 to 12 - grade. From 12 to one o'clock - a walk. Lunch at one o'clock. From 2 to 3 - either penmanship or drawing. From 3 to 5 - grade. At 5 o'clock - tea; before 6 - walk; then repetition of lessons or auxiliary class. On Wednesdays and Saturdays - dancing or fencing. Every Saturday there is a bathhouse. At half past 9 o'clock the bell rings for dinner. After dinner until 10 o'clock - recreation. At 10 - evening prayer - sleep."

The creation of an educational institution of this kind was virtually an unprecedented event. After all, for the first time, teachers were given the goal of not just “stuffing” young students with knowledge, but of raising individuals, an elite who would serve for the good of the Fatherland. One of the sections of the Lyceum Charter “Fine writing, or literature” read: “... when guiding pupils in literature, the professor must carefully avoid empty school decorations and, occupying pupils with subjects appropriate to their age, first force them to think, and then look for expressions of these thoughts in words and never tolerate them using words without clear ideas.”

And a thought close to this was sublimely and passionately expounded by one of the teachers of the Lyceum, Professor A.P. Kunitsyn in his “Instruction to Pupils,” read on October 19, 1811 at a gala event dedicated to the opening of the Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo: “Don’t you strive to be the last of your kind? Do you want to mingle with the crowd of ordinary people, groveling in the unknown and every day swallowed up by the waves of oblivion? No! May this thought not corrupt your imagination! Love of glory and Fatherland should be your leaders! But with these high virtues, preserve this innocence that shines on your faces, this simple-heartedness that defeats cunning and deceit, this frankness, which presupposes an immaculate conscience, this meekness, which depicts the calmness of the soul, not overwhelmed by strong passions, this modesty, which serves a transparent veil to excellent talents.”

It must be said that the creators of the Lyceum largely succeeded in fulfilling the task: truly bright, original and courageously thinking people came out of this educational institution. Sometimes they thought so young and free-thinking that their ideas ran counter to the policies of the state. Thus, while still lyceum students, I. Pushchin, V. Kuchelbecker and V. Volkhovsky visited the secret political circle of the future Decembrists A. Muravyov and I. Burtsev “The Sacred Artel” in Tsarskoe Selo. The first two subsequently became Decembrists and were convicted. After the December uprising in 1825, stricter control over students and teachers was established at the Lyceum.

And although in the minds of Russian people the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum is associated primarily with the name of Pushkin and his classmates, the Lyceum gave Russia a huge number of worthy, outstanding graduates. Let's remember at least a few.

Over the 33 years of existence of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, 286 people graduated from it. Many of them joined the ranks of the officials of the Russian Empire (A. M. Gorchakov, A. K. Gire, N. K. Gire, A. V. Golovnin, D. N. Zamyatnin, N. A. Korsakov, M. A. Korf , S. G. Lomonosov, F. H. Steven, D. A. Tolstoy), others devoted themselves to scientific activities (K. S. Veselovsky, J. K. Grot, N. Ya. Danilevsky). The historical glory of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was brought primarily by the graduates of 1817 - poets A. S. Pushkin, A. A. Delvig, Decembrists V. K. Kuchelbecker, I. I. Pushchin.

There is a well-known painting by I. Repin from 1911 (painted, as we can see from the date, on the centenary of the first enrollment at the Lyceum) “A. S. Pushkin at the act at the Lyceum on January 8, 1815,” in which the young poet reads his poem “Memories in Tsarskoe Selo,” and Gabriel Derzhavin (1743-1816) listens to him, standing up, about which Pushkin later, in the novel in poems of “Eugene Onegin” (1823-1831), will write: “Old Derzhavin noticed us and, going to his grave, blessed ...” He writes in his in his memoirs, Pushkin’s lyceum comrade Ivan Pushchin: “Derzhavin crowned our young poet with his sovereign blessing... When the patriarch of our singers, in delight, with tears in his eyes, rushed to kiss and blessed his curly head, we all, under some unknown influence, reverently were silent."

Special words should be said about His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov (1798-1883), who became a famous diplomat throughout Europe, Chancellor of the Russian Empire, and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was a year older than Pushkin, studied at the Lyceum at the same time as Alexander Sergeevich, and from his Lyceum years remained a close friend of the great poet. Pushkin dedicated biased lines to him:

You, Gorchakov, have been lucky from the first days,

Praise be to you - fortune shines cold

Didn't change your free soul:

You are still the same for honor and friends.

Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky; 1873-1965; First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1936-1964) in his treatise “Pushkin in his relation to religion and the Orthodox Church,” written for the 100th anniversary of the poet’s death, referring to the words of the prince Urusova, notes that it was on the advice of Gorchakov and with his assistance that Pushkin, without regret, burned the poem “The Monk”, which he composed in imitation of Barkov, which could have left a stain on his memory. For outstanding activity in the field of Russian statehood, A. M. Gorchakov was awarded the Order of St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called, the highest award of the Russian Empire.

A little-known fact remains that M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin studied at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum for 5 years. That an outstanding writer remained in the shadows is quite remarkable. G. P. Blok (cousin of the poet A. A. Blok) recalled in a letter on February 19, 1922 to the writer B. A. Sadovsky: “You ask how Shchedrin was treated at the Lyceum. No way. It was a stranger. They rushed around with Pushkin. All legends, all traditions came from him. I saw his son Alexander at our anniversary in 1912. A small, hunched old man, bald, with glasses, a gray beard, wearing a turquoise hussar dolman and a dark father’s profile... In one of the rooms of the first (graduation) class, a stone was kept on a special table. They said that the class bell was broken from the step of the staircase on which Pushkin broke at graduation. From this the room was called “Kamenka”, and breaking the bell became a tradition. This was the last act of a very long and complex “farewell” ceremony. It is all crowded, with the entire lyceum, and only in the evening, after prayer, the departing course is left alone. The lights are put out, a stone is brought. The senior in the course (according to the time spent at the lyceum) takes the course bell, which for 6 years they used to wake us up, call us to lessons and lunch, and smashes it against a stone. The fragments are disassembled, set in gold and worn like key rings. My fragment disappeared in the Safe Treasury along with my grandfather’s gold breguet and my great-great-grandfather’s amethyst signet with a coat of arms.”

A. S. Pushkin composed several festive greeting poems on the occasion of the annual celebrations of the Lyceum Day. The last of them was written by the poet three and a half months before his own death, on October 19, 1836, and this work apparently shows some foreboding of the poet’s approaching death. At the celebration, the poet was unable to finish reading the poem out loud - tears interrupted his voice. Someone else finished reading for him.

...And the first one is complete, friends, complete!

And all the way to the bottom in honor of our union!

Bless, jubilant muse,

Bless: long live the Lyceum!

To the mentors who guarded our youth,

To all honor, both dead and alive,

Raising a grateful cup to my lips,

Without remembering evil, we will reward goodness.

“We studied little in classes, but a lot in reading and conversation with constant friction of minds,” recalled one of the first graduates of the Lyceum, Modest Korf.

In November 1839 E.A. Engelhardt wrote to M.D. Delarue that the greatest thing one can wish for the “lyceum students” is to preserve the “sense of the Heart,” for in the “Heart lies all the dignity of Man: it is the sanctuary, the keeper of all our virtues, of which the cold, calculating the head knows only by name and theory.”

At the end of 1843, the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was reorganized into the Alexandrovsky Lyceum and in January 1844 it was transferred to St. Petersburg.

And on May 29, 1918, by resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, the educational institution was closed. The vacated building was occupied by the Proletarian Polytechnic. Symbolic and indicative of that era.

Let us not forget that in honor of the 100th anniversary of Pushkin, on the initiative of the poet I. Annensky (1855-1909), in those years the director of the Tsarskoe Selo Nikolaevsky Men's Gymnasium, a monument to the poet Alexander Pushkin by the sculptor R. R. Bach was erected in Tsarskoye Selo.

A. Akhmatova (1889-1966) said about Pushkin, “The dark-skinned youth wandered along the alleys, / The lake shores were sad, / And we cherish the century / The barely audible rustle of steps.”

Fortunately, these lines have been true for not just a century, but two.

In one quatrain, Anna Andreevna connected together the elegiac structure of the Tsarskoye Selo romantic park (with its palace, gazebos, fountains, sculptures), with what the “rustle of steps” in the autumn alleys of the young genius, which eventually became audible to the whole world, resulted in for Russia .

And although this great name alone does not exhaust the essence of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, nor its significance in Russian history and in the history of the national education system, for many of us it was Pushkin who made a clear connection to the place and time, elegiacally saying before saying goodbye to the world:

My friends, our union is wonderful!

He, like the soul, is indivisible and eternal -

Unwavering, free and carefree

He grew together under the shadow of friendly muses.

Wherever fate throws us

And happiness wherever it leads,

We are still the same: the whole world is foreign to us;

Our Fatherland is Tsarskoye Selo.

Anna Minakova

Do you like museums? I love those in which the spirit, the atmosphere, whether of the time or the owners, are preserved. Today, October 19, on the anniversary of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, it’s time to take a walk through its corridors and classrooms.

The very creation of this extraordinary educational institution, its rules, and most importantly, of course, its students, still evoke surprise and admiration.

The educational institution with a name borrowed from Ancient Greece was opened on October 19, 1811 in a wing of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo.

In 6 years, young nobles had to receive not only a gymnasium, but also a university education. It’s actually amazing what hopes were placed on them!

The emperor himself provided special patronage, and the first director was not a teacher, but the famous Russian diplomat and educator V.F. Malinovsky.

It was the only educational institution of that time in which the Charter prohibited corporal punishment. The main principle is respect for students, raising true sons of the Fatherland.

The list of students enrolled in the very first year of the Lyceum is also amazing. I will name only a few - Pushkin, Pushchin, Kuchelbecker, Delvig, Matyushkin, Gorchakov, Korsakov, Volkhovsky. Not only their names went down in history, but also their ability to maintain lyceum friendship until the end of their days - an example that, perhaps, history does not know another. (Next I will quote a lot from “Notes on Pushkin” by I.I. Pushchin, who, if not the first lyceum student, should have a conversation with us?!)

Even in the summer, the parents of young nobles wrote petitions to the sovereign himself, and then those admitted to the exams underwent serious tests. The lucky ones who were enrolled then waited until October. Even during the exams, Pushchin met his future friend: “Some official came in with a paper in his hand and began calling out names. - I hear: Al. Pushkin! - a lively boy, curly-haired, quick-eyed, also somewhat embarrassed, speaks up. [...] We all saw that Pushkin was ahead of us, he read a lot that we had never heard of, he remembered everything he read; but his dignity consisted in the fact that he did not at all think of showing off and putting on airs, as very often happens in those years (each of us was 12 years old) with precocious children who, for some reason, find an opportunity for something earlier and more easily learn."

And then it came, the grand opening day of the Lyceum.

“The celebration began with prayer. Mass and prayer service with blessing of water were served in the court church. We were present in the choirs during the service. After the prayer service, the clergy went to the Lyceum with holy water, where they sprinkled us and the entire institution.

In the Lyceum hall, between the columns, there was a large table covered with red cloth and gold fringe. On this table lay the highest diploma granted to the Lyceum. On the right side of the table we stood in three rows; with us are the director, inspector and tutors; on the left are professors and other officials of the lyceum administration. The rest of the hall, at some distance from the table, was all lined with rows of chairs for the public. All the highest dignitaries and teachers from St. Petersburg were invited. When the whole company had gathered, the minister invited the sovereign.”

This certificate of amazing size and magnificence still lies on this table, only under a glass cover.

Everyone was shocked by the performance of the young teacher A.P. Kunitsyna.

Kunitsyn tribute to heart and wine!

He created us, he raised our flame,

They set the cornerstone,

They lit a clean lamp...*

In the same hall, lyceum students will take exams in the presence of a high commission and their relatives.

Thanks to Pushchin’s notes and the memories of other lyceum students, a case went down in history when, in the presence of the famous, but then very elderly poet G.R. Derzhavin, the very young A. Pushkin read his poem “Memories in Tsarskoe Selo”. Pushchin will write about this: “Listening to familiar poems, a chill ran through my skin. When the patriarch of our singers, in delight, with tears in his eyes, rushed to kiss him and placed the shadow on his curly head, we all, under some unknown influence, remained reverently silent. They wanted to hug our singer themselves, but he was not there: he ran away!..” The same incident is mentioned by Yu. Tynyanov in the novel “Pushkin”, the same incident is also in the painting by I.E. Repina.

And Pushkin himself would write many years later:

Old man Derzhavin noticed us

And, going into the grave, he blessed.

I. Pushchin describes in detail the premises of the Lyceum and the daily routine.

“The lower floor housed the economic department and the apartments of the inspector, tutors and some other officials serving at the Lyceum; in the second there is a dining room, a hospital with a pharmacy and a conference room with an office; in the third there is a recreational hall, classrooms (two with departments, one for students to study after lectures), a physical office, a room for newspapers and magazines and a library in the arch connecting the Lyceum with the palace through the choir of the court church. At the top there are dormitories. For them, along the entire structure, arches were cut in the internal transverse walls. This created a corridor with stairs at both ends, in which rooms were separated on both sides by partitions: fifty rooms in total. In each room there is an iron bed, a chest of drawers, a desk, a mirror, a chair, a table for washing, and a night table. On the desk there is an inkwell and a candlestick with tongs.

All floors and staircases had lamp lighting; The two middle floors have parquet floors. There are full-wall mirrors in the living room and damask furniture.

This was our housewarming!

With all these conveniences, it was not difficult for us to get used to our new life. Following the opening, proper studies began. Walk three times a day, in any weather. In the evening there is a ball and running around in the hall.

We got up at the bell at six o'clock. We got dressed and went to prayer in the hall. We read the morning and evening prayers out loud in turn.

From 7 to 9 o'clock - class.

At 9 - tea; walk - until 10.

From 10 to 12 - grade.

From 12 to one - a walk.

At one o'clock - lunch.

From 2 to 3 - either penmanship or drawing.

From 3 to 5 - grade.

At 5 o'clock - tea; before 6 - walk; then repetition of lessons or auxiliary class.

On Wednesdays and Saturdays there is dancing or fencing.

Every Saturday there is a bathhouse.

At half past 9 o'clock the bell rings for dinner.

After dinner until 10 o'clock - recreation.

At 10: evening prayer, sleep.

In the corridor at night, night lights were placed in all the arches. The guy on duty walked with measured steps along the corridor.”

There are always fresh flowers in Pushkin’s room now.

The library was located in the passage from the outbuilding to the Catherine Palace, numbered 5 thousand copies, a simply huge number at that time. We tried to write out all the new items. The literary creativity of the lyceum students themselves flourished and was encouraged in every possible way. Several handwritten journals were published.

“At the very beginning, he is our poet. How I now see that afternoon class of Koshansky, when, having finished the lecture a little earlier than the lesson hour, the professor said: “Now, gentlemen, let’s try feathers: please describe a rose to me in verse.” Our poems did not stick at all, and Pushkin instantly read two quatrains, which delighted us all."

But I was practically never among the best students. No one will say where his place was in the class, because... Lyceum students moved through the rows depending on their current performance, and young Alexander often moved from the first row to the last.

Pushchin writes touchingly about Pushkin: “In order to love him in a real way, you had to look at him with that complete goodwill that knows and sees all the unevenness of character and other shortcomings, puts up with them and ends up loving even them in a friend and comrade.” . Somehow this quickly and imperceptibly settled down between us.”

All his life he noted A.S. Pushkin’s Lyceum anniversary, he has several poems with almost the same title “October 19”, only sometimes he had to celebrate alone, and then there were fewer and fewer lyceum students, some poems are no longer imbued with light sadness, but with real longing for those who have passed away.

But this is forever:

My friends, our union is wonderful:

He, like a soul, is indivisible and eternal,

Unshakable, free and carefree!

He grew together under the shadow of friendly muses.

Wherever fate throws us,

And happiness wherever it leads,

We are still the same; The whole world is foreign to us,

Our Fatherland is Tsarskoye Selo.

If Pushkin is our everything, then the poet himself, although not everything, was given a lot by his alma mater - the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. And not only for him - for all of Russia, the lyceum became a beacon of enlightenment, the cradle of an entire generation of educated and free-thinking people.

Like in Europe

Despite all the efforts of the authorities and society since Peter I, at the beginning of the 19th century, things were not going well with education in Russia. Only 20% of the population could read and write, and even among the nobles there were those who had difficulty writing their own names on paper. Throughout the vast empire there were 550 schools - fewer than in Germany - and one university, Moscow, to which four more were added at the beginning of the century. This was the merit of the emperor Alexandra I and his advisor, the famous reformer Mikhail Speransky. Through their efforts, the Ministry of Public Education was created (in 1802) and a regulation was adopted according to which schools were created in every city and village, and gymnasiums in provincial centers.

Aristocrats, by tradition, hired foreign teachers for their children or sent them to study abroad. However, in conditions when almost all of Europe, under the banner of the European Union, that is, the Napoleonic Empire, opposed Russia, this began to be considered unpatriotic. There was a need for their own elite school for the nobility, providing an education no worse than the European one. We decided to take an example from the same Napoleon, who created in France a network of lyceums - higher schools, where they taught not only the humanities, but also the natural sciences, and at public expense.

True, the French emperor ordered to admit people of “every rank” into his lyceums, and the Russian - exclusively nobles. But he allowed the first lyceum to be established in his own palace; more precisely, in the palace complex of Tsarskoye Selo, where his illustrious grandmother lived Catherine II and where he spent his childhood in the Alexander Palace. Under the lyceum they gave away a four-story wing of another palace - the Catherine Palace, in which the daughters had previously lived Paul I. The situation was obligatory: lyceum students had to grow up under the watchful supervision of the authorities.

Class

The word "lyceum" comes from the grove Apollo of Lycaeum(Volchy) in Athens, where he once founded his school Aristotle. Education at the Athens Lyceum cost a lot of money, but at Tsarskoye Selo it was free, although only those children from 10 to 12 years old who showed “exemplary success and diligence” were accepted. They had to study for six years, essentially receiving a university education. For the first three years, lyceum students completed the high school program: ancient and modern languages, mathematics, history, geography, and the Law of God. Next came the university program: the same mathematics with the basics of physics, literature and “moral and political sciences.” Dancing, fencing, and horse riding, which were obligatory for nobles, were not forgotten. Like Aristotle’s students - the Peripatetics, which means “walkers”, lyceum students were supposed to communicate with nature, walking in the vast parks of Tsarskoye Selo. Embodying the ancient maxim “a healthy mind in a healthy body,” they were taught gymnastics and swimming, music and drawing. It is worth saying that the lyceum became the first educational institution in Russia free from corporal punishment.

The project of the lyceum was drawn up by the same Mikhail Speransky. He wanted to raise educated officials capable of implementing his reform projects. He also recommended Vasily Malinovsky, a diplomat, translator, and admirer of ideas, for the post of director. Jean-Jacques Rousseau And Immanuel Kant. He invited teachers, primarily young ones: a lawyer Alexandra Kunitsyna, mathematics Yakova Kartsova, Latinist Nikolai Koshansky. However, among the invitees there were also gray-haired veterans, for example, a French teacher David de Boudry- brother of a revolutionary Marata, who changed his last name so as not to have anything to do with him. He was the strictest with his students and the only one who could force them to study. Others were too liberal and behaved with them rather in a comradely manner, especially the teacher of Russian literature Alexander Galich(a famous dissident bard later took the pseudonym in his honor). Pushkin, who loved him most of all, addressed him in verse as “my good Galich.”

However, the main favorite of the lyceum students was 27-year-old Alexander Kunitsyn, who had the honor of making a welcoming speech at the opening of the lyceum on October 19, 1811. In a famous poem dedicated to this event, the poet wrote:

Kunitsyn the gift of heart and wine:
He created us, he raised our flame;
They set the cornerstone,
They lit a clean lamp.

As you can see, all of the above are Masonic terms, and this is no coincidence: according to persistent rumors, Kunitsyn (as well as Malinovsky) belonged to the “free masons”. In his speech, he transparently hinted that those in power, including the Tsar himself, must abide by their own laws and serve the people. The times were liberal, and these words did not bother Alexandra I and his loved ones who attended the ceremony. However, there were dissatisfied people even then: Chief Prosecutor of the Synod, Prince Alexander Golitsyn called the newborn lyceum a breeding ground for the “French infection” - freethinking. Later, having become the Minister of Public Education, Golitsyn first of all destroyed the “hotbed”, firing many teachers, including Kunitsyn. Even earlier, the lyceum lost Malinovsky, who briefly outlived his beloved wife. After him, a prominent teacher became the director Egor Engelgardt. He saw off the first graduates, presenting them with cast iron rings as souvenirs - a sign of true friendship (after that they called themselves “cast ironmen” for a long time).

Among the first 30 lyceum students there were very different people who were united by one thing: their parents submitted timely applications for the placement of their children in studies. To Speransky's chagrin, the rich aristocrats did not show much interest in the new educational institution; this reduced not only his prestige, but also his financial capabilities. As a result, most of the lyceum students turned out to be the sons of poor nobles, including Alexander Pushkin, the son of a middle-class Pskov landowner. Almost half of them were Germans, Poles, French: the future dignitary Modest Korf, Pushkin’s future second in the fatal duel Konstantin Danzas or Silverius de Broglio, a descendant of the French dukes, “last in learning, but first in pranks.” Just one person, the nephew of the Minister of Finance Konstantin Guryev, were expelled (as if for stealing from their comrades), others graduated from the lyceum and most of them made a good career. Although how can I say: the most famous today - after Pushkin - are lyceum students Ivan Pushchin And Wilhelm Kuchelbecker spent half their life in hard labor. Disappeared “in the depths of the Siberian ores” and Alexey Illichevsky, who at the Lyceum was considered a stronger poet than Pushkin.

Which of us needs the Lyceum Day in our old age?
Will you have to celebrate alone?

Alexander Sergeevich asked. He didn’t yet know that he would be a wit and a fashionista Alexander Gorchakov, long-time Russian Foreign Minister (he died in 1883). Most of the lyceum students were barely over fifty, and the handsome lazy Nikolai Rzhevsky died at the age of 17 - from “nervous fever.” Not only Pushkin - many of them remembered the lyceum as the best page in life and tried to implement in their activities what they were taught there.

Ilya Repin. Pushkin at the Lyceum exam

Soon after the start of studies, the lyceum, along with all of Russia, had to survive the Patriotic War of 1812. Of course, there were no military operations in Tsarskoe Selo, although the general confusion affected it too - classes were continually disrupted, and promised funding was delayed. Lyceum students lived quite modestly: their rooms measuring 2 by 4 meters contained a narrow iron bed, a chest of drawers, a chair and a washbasin. There was no longer enough space for a desk, so homework was done standing at the desk. “Uncle” woke up the students at six in the morning, and classes began at seven. At nine - light breakfast and a walk, then classes again. At noon - another walk and a three-course lunch, the list of which was posted in the dining room. Menu for one of the days: pearl barley soup with veal, roast chicken and soft-boiled eggs. After lunch, classes continued for another three hours, then they walked for a second time, did gymnastics, and in inclement weather they painted or played music under the supervision of teachers. We studied no more than seven hours daily, which was monitored by management. The sick were sent to the hospital, to the doctor Franz Peschel. Many people flocked there, including because the doctor poured half a glass of red wine a day “to strengthen” the young patients. Otherwise, alcohol was strictly prohibited in the lyceum: the well-known attempt of Pushkin and his friends to drink the “gogel-mogel” they had brewed themselves almost ended in expulsion.

Studying was not limited to classes: teachers encouraged reading any literature, albeit ideologically dubious. Modest Korf recalled: “We studied little in class, but a lot in reading and conversation with constant friction of minds.” In addition to the initially small lyceum library, students took books from teachers, ordered them from St. Petersburg and even from abroad. The acquaintance with literature was also personal: they came to the lyceum Gavrila Derzhavin, Vasily Zhukovsky, Konstantin Batyushkov and other fashionable writers, including Pushkin's uncle Vasily. Everyone knows about the memorable visit of Gavrila Derzhavin to the exams in 1815. Having arrived, the somewhat deaf poet loudly asked the footman where the outhouse was, and then praised Pushkin’s poetry as he read it, declaring him his “victor-disciple.”

Poetry was encouraged at the Lyceum: professor of literature Koshansky During the lessons he asked everyone to write poems on a given topic. Gathering in their small cell rooms, the lyceum students told all sorts of stories, read their own and other people’s poems, argued and joked. A custom arose to write down what was told, handwritten journals were composed, and from 1814 the works of students began to appear in print, albeit under pseudonyms. Pushkin’s first poem, “To a Friend the Poet,” was published in Vestnik Evropy this year with the anagram signature “N.K.Sh.P.” He was inspired to write his lyceum poems not only by what he read, but also by what he saw—relationships with his comrades and teachers, which were not always smooth. Pushchin noted in his notes: “From the very beginning, Pushkin was more irritable than many and therefore did not arouse general sympathy. He sometimes put himself in a difficult situation with inappropriate jokes and awkward barbs, and then did not know how to get out of it... Warped by his home upbringing... he was, of course, a difficult person both for others and for himself.”

And yet, the poet retained the brightest memories of the lyceum - also because he experienced his first love here. It was the maid of honor Ekaterina Bakunina, who often visited her brother, a lyceum student. Pushkin dedicated poems to her, although he also courted others: the young countess Natalya Kochubey, a French widow Maria Smith, serf actress Natalya... Often a young man in love left the lyceum without permission, which was prohibited by the rules, and received penalties for this. However, this did not affect the result - in June 1817, all lyceum students received certificates of completion of their studies and set off on their own journey through life. And their alma mater continued its work - many more outstanding people graduated from it, including the writer Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. However, times have changed, especially after the Decembrist uprising, in which several graduates of the lyceum took part. New king Nicholas I, having visited the “hotbed of freethinking”, he was dissatisfied. To begin with, he ordered the closure of the boarding school at the lyceum, and in 1831 all training there was transferred to a military model.

After this, the glory of the educational institution faded, and in 1843 the lyceum moved to St. Petersburg, receiving the name of Alexandrovsky. Retired dignitaries settled in the empty Tsarskoye Selo building. After the revolution, the Alexander Lyceum was closed, but the palace complex in Tsarskoe Selo (renamed Detskoe Selo, and then Pushkin) was turned into a museum. Revived after the destruction of the war, the former lyceum became an integral part of the State Pushkin Museum. The interiors of Pushkin’s era have been restored here, and hundreds of thousands of tourists visiting the museum can personally assess the veracity of the poet’s lines:

Wherever fate throws us,
And happiness wherever it leads,
We are still the same: the whole world is foreign to us;
Our Fatherland is Tsarskoye Selo.

Vadim Erlikhman

The forest drops its crimson robe,
Frost will silver the withered field,
The day will appear as if involuntarily
And it will disappear beyond the edge of the surrounding mountains.
Burn, fireplace, in my deserted cell;
And you, wine, are a friend of the autumn cold,
Pour a gratifying hangover into my chest,
A momentary oblivion of bitter torment.
I am sad: there is no friend with me,
With whom would I drink away the long separation,
Who could I shake hands with from the heart?
And wish you many happy years.
I drink alone; imagination in vain
Around me my comrades are calling;
The familiar approach is not heard,
And my soul does not wait for a sweetheart.
I drink alone, and on the banks of the Neva
Today my friends call me...
But how many of you feast there too?
Who else are you missing?
Who changed the captivating habit?
Who has been drawn away from you by the cold light?
Whose voice fell silent at the fraternal roll call?
Who didn't come? Who is missing between you?
He didn’t come, our curly-haired singer,
With fire in the eyes, with a sweet-voiced guitar:
Under the myrtles of beautiful Italy
He sleeps quietly, and a friendly chisel
Didn’t inscribe it over the Russian grave
A few words in the native language,
So that you never find hello sad
Son of the north, wandering in a foreign land.
Are you sitting with your friends?
Restless lover of foreign skies?
Or again you are passing through the sultry tropic
And the eternal ice of the midnight seas?
Happy journey!.. From the Lyceum threshold
You stepped onto the ship jokingly,
And from then on, your road is in the seas,
O beloved child of waves and storms!
You saved in a wandering fate
Wonderful years, original morals:
Lyceum noise, lyceum fun
Among the stormy waves you dreamed;
You stretched out your hand to us from across the sea,
You carried us alone in your young soul
And he repeated: “For a long separation
A secret fate, perhaps, has condemned us!”
My friends, our union is wonderful!
He, like a soul, is indivisible and eternal -
Unwavering, free and carefree
He grew together under the shadow of friendly muses.
Wherever fate throws us,
And happiness wherever it leads,
We are still the same: the whole world is foreign to us;
Our Fatherland is Tsarskoye Selo.
From end to end we are pursued by thunderstorms,
Entangled in the nets of a harsh fate,
I tremblingly enter the bosom of new friendship,
The charter, the caressing head...
With my sad and rebellious prayer,
With the trusting hope of the first years,
He gave himself up to some friends with a tender soul;
But their greeting was bitter and unbrotherly.
And now here, in this forgotten wilderness,
In the abode of desert blizzards and cold,
A sweet consolation was prepared for me:
Three of you, my soul's friends,
I hugged here. The poet's house is disgraced,
Oh my Pushchin, you were the first to visit ;
You sweetened the sad day of exile,
You turned his lyceum into a day.
You, Gorchakov, lucky from the first days,
Praise be to you - fortune shines cold
Didn't change your free soul:
You are still the same for honor and friends.
Strict fate has assigned us different paths;
Stepping into life, we quickly parted ways:
But by chance on a country road
We met and hugged brotherly.
When the wrath of fate befell me,
A stranger to everyone, like a homeless orphan,
Under the storm, I drooped my languid head
And I was waiting for you, prophet of the Permesian maidens,
And you came, inspired son of laziness,
Oh my Delvig: your voice awakened
The heat of the heart, lulled for so long,
And I cheerfully blessed fate.
From infancy the spirit of songs burned in us,
And we experienced wonderful excitement;
From infancy two muses flew to us,
And our destiny was sweet with their caress:
But I already loved applause,
You, proud one, sang for the muses and for the soul;
I spent my gift like life without attention,
You raised your genius in silence.
The service of the muses does not tolerate fuss;
The beautiful must be majestic:
But youth advises us slyly,
And noisy dreams make us happy...
Let's come to our senses - but it's too late! and sadly
We look back, not seeing any traces there.
Tell me, Wilhelm, wasn’t that what happened to us?
Is my brother related by muse, by destiny?
It's time, it's time! our mental anguish
The world is not worth it; Let's leave the misconceptions behind!
Let's hide life under the shadow of solitude!
I'm waiting for you, my belated friend -
Come; by the fire of a magical story
Revive heartfelt legends;
Let's talk about the stormy days of the Caucasus,
About Schiller, about fame, about love.
It's time for me... feast, oh friends!
I anticipate a pleasant meeting;
Remember the poet's prediction:
A year will fly by, and I will be with you again,
The covenant of my dreams will come true;
A year will fly by and I will come to you!
Oh how many tears and how many exclamations,
And how many cups raised to heaven!
And the first one is complete, friends, complete!
And all the way to the bottom in honor of our union!
Bless, jubilant muse,
Bless: long live the Lyceum!
To the mentors who guarded our youth,
To all honor, both dead and alive,
Raising a grateful cup to my lips,
Without remembering evil, we will reward goodness.
Fuller, fuller! and, with my heart on fire,
Again, drink to the bottom, drink to the drop!
But for whom? oh others, guess...
Hurray, our king! So! Let's drink to the king.
He is a human! they are ruled by the moment.
He is a slave to rumors, doubts and passions;
Let us forgive him his wrongful persecution:
He took Paris, he founded the Lyceum.
Feast while we're still here!
Alas, our circle is thinning hour by hour;
Some are sleeping in a coffin, some, distant, are orphans;
Fate is watching, we are withering; the days are flying;
Invisibly bowing and growing cold,
We are nearing the beginning...
For some of us in old age, Lyceum Day
Will you have to celebrate alone?
Unhappy friend! among new generations
The annoying guest is both superfluous and alien,
He will remember us and the days of connections,
Closing my eyes with a trembling hand...
Let it be with sad joy
Then he will spend this day at the cup,
Like now I, your disgraced recluse,
He spent it without grief and worries.

"Fatherland to us Tsarskoye Selo"

“The Lyceum was established with bright hopes”

The author of the school project was Mikhail Speransky, the famous reformer of the “days of Alexander”, who persistently instilled in society the ideas of the bygone era of Enlightenment. The lawmaker was especially inspired by the example of the ancient Lyceum, once founded in Athens by Aristotle; it was not for nothing that the new educational institution received the same name. And in Tsarskoye Selo it was placed because it was supposed to train great princes there - however, this idea remained “on paper”, but the lyceum was located on the territory of Tsarskoye Selo for more than 30 years.

Teachers for the school were selected with special care: all of them were like-minded people of Speransky, and some (like lawyer Kunitsyn) were his colleagues in the legal field. In his opening speech, Kunitsyn, addressing future students, directly called on them to become the Russian elite: “Would you like to mingle with the crowd of ordinary people... every day swallowed up by the waves of oblivion? No!...Love of glory and the Fatherland should be your guides.”. It is interesting that the person of the sovereign, who was present with his family at the opening of the lyceum, was not mentioned even once in Kunitsyn’s speech. This indicates the absence of loyal sentiments among teachers, which were considered not particularly important for enlightened people. Moreover, the lyceum students were taught French by their brother Jean-Paul Marat- that is, even the presence of people close to revolutionary circles in the school was considered acceptable.

Among other sciences, the course of study included subjects united by the surprising name for a modern school, “moral sciences.” These included political economy, ethics, logic, fundamentals of law and other disciplines. The fact is that the main task of lyceum education, the formation of students’ personalities, was considered to be morality.

Classes were structured in such a way as to eliminate fatigue and dulling of the attention of lyceum students. Any lessons requiring mental exertion were replaced by rest, physical exercise or creative activity, which was highly encouraged by teachers.

Cranberry duel and other mischief

Since the pupils lyceum Allotted free time, they used it on a grand scale both for creative activities (from drawing and poetry to publishing their own magazines), and for endless fun and pranks, and some of them serve as incomparable subjects for historical anecdotes of that era.

The most innocent part of these constant pranks can be considered the assignment of comic nicknames to each of the lyceum students, one or even several per brother. Pushkin was called Egoza for his lively character, Monkey and Tiger for his non-Slavic appearance and hot temper, and French for his excellent command of languages. The tall, clumsy Danzas was called Bear for his indifference to everything that was happening around him, suddenly replaced by outbursts of rage. For his fanatical desire to serve in the navy, Matyushkin was given the strange nickname “I want to sail.” The annoying, cunning Komovsky was called Chanterelle or Resin. But the absolute favorite in terms of the number of nicknames invented for him was the long, awkward Kuchelbecker, who at first spoke poor Russian. They called him all sorts of names: Küchle, and Bechelkücher, and Glista, and Teuton, and Gesel. The young man suffered unspeakably and was terribly offended by his comrades, but this only provoked them more.

Do you know that…
Scientists at the University of Newcastle (England) found that posters with images of eyes hung in the cafeteria forced students to clean up after themselves twice as often as on days when there were no posters.

Kuchelbecker generally became the object of ridicule and practical jokes more often than others. One of the stories about this is called the cranberry duel. The poet Zhukovsky, who taught at the Lyceum, once did not show up for dinner, where he was invited. He was asked why he missed the party, and he replied that he suffered from an upset stomach, and besides, Kuchelbecker came to see him, and therefore he stayed at home. Having learned about this, Pushkin immediately sculpted an epigram:

I overate at dinner
Yes, Yakov locked the door by mistake -
So it was for me, my friends,
Both Kuchelbecker and sickening...

Kuchelbecker, completely devoid of a sense of humor, demanded the author to the barrier. However, the duel turned into another farce, as the comrades loaded both pistols with cranberries.

The older the lyceum students became, the more risky their antics became. One day, in a dark corridor, Pushkin hugged the elderly maid of honor Volkonskaya, mistaking her for the pretty maid Natasha. The lady indignantly went to complain to the sovereign, and the next morning he scolded the director of the lyceum. Alexander noticed that the lyceum students were already stealing apples from his orchard, beating the guards in the same orchard, but pestering the ladies-in-waiting was too impudent. However, the legend says that the emperor soon relented and jokingly remarked that the old maid should be pleased with the young man’s mistake.

“...what diversity there is in our everyday destinies!”

It would seem that the lyceum students who received an excellent education expected complete success in the public sphere. But the fates of the 29 young men from the first graduating class turned out completely differently. Some died so early that they simply did not have time to achieve success in any activity. In 1820, Silverius Broglio died and Nikolai Korsakov died in Florence from consumption. In 1831, the lyceum brotherhood lost two more comrades: Anton Delvig died of typhus and Semyon Yesakov shot himself from unknown troubles in his service.

The free spirit of the lyceum took root in two graduates so much that it brought them to Senate Square along with the Decembrists. Ivan Pushchin was sentenced to indefinite hard labor for participating in the rebellion and only returned from Siberia 30 years later. Wilhelm Kuchelbecker also served 15 years of hard labor, but never saw either Moscow or St. Petersburg again - he died in Tobolsk from consumption.

Most lyceum students did not strive to make a career - they simply engaged in their chosen profession or even became landowners, abandoning military or civilian service. Fyodor Matyushkin, as he dreamed, became a sailor and rose to the rank of admiral. Alexander Kornilov managed to serve as the governor of Kyiv, Vyatka and Tambov, and earned the rank of Privy Councilor. Ivan Malinovsky served in the guard, but after the Decembrist rebellion in 1825 he retired and lived until the end of his days on his own Kamenka estate in the Kharkov province. Pushkin, as is well known, was engaged in literature, and in ranks did not rise above the titular adviser.

Only two lyceum students achieved major success in their careers. Modest Korf served under Speransky, who highly valued him for his ability to systematize any information, and in addition, for many years he occupied the chair of director of the Imperial Public Library. Another graduate of the lyceum, Alexander Gorchakov, gained real political fame. He served as a diplomat, after the death of Karl Nesselrode succeeded him as head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in 1867 he was appointed Chancellor of the Russian Empire - he became the last dignitary to serve in this position.

Lyceum anniversary

But no matter who the lyceum students were, the opening day of the lyceum - October 19 - always remained a holiday dear to their hearts. Those who could gathered on this day in St. Petersburg for a gala dinner. Those who, for various reasons, could not join the fun, celebrated alone, remembering the Lyceum days and their comrades. Pushkin attended meetings of classmates for the first three years after graduation, and spent the next six years in exile, and therefore celebrated anniversaries with poetry. This is what the poet wrote in the poem “October 19, 1825”:

My friends, our union is wonderful!
He, like the soul, is indivisible and eternal -
Unshakable, free and carefree,
He grew together under the shadow of friendly muses.

Wherever fate throws us
And happiness wherever it leads,
We are still the same: the whole world is foreign to us;
Our Fatherland is Tsarskoye Selo.

It is enough to read these lines to understand how much the years spent within the walls of the Lyceum meant to each of Pushkin’s fellow students. The minutes of a meeting of lyceum students from 1836 have been preserved, describing the completely youthful fun of 11 adult men who arrived at the meeting. According to the record, members of the Lyceum company on October 19, 1836 “had a tasty and noisy dinner,” “read ancient protocols, songs, etc., papers stored in the Lyceum archive,” “commemorated the Lyceum’s antiquity,” “sang national songs.” Only when Pushkin began to read poems for the quarter-century anniversary of the Lyceum, he was unable to finish reading them to the end: tears prevented him. He, like all his comrades, considered the lyceum years a wonderful time and yearned for them until the end of his life.

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