Among jubilee landmarks on UNESCO’s calendar of important dates is the 300th anniversary of the birth of the great Russian scientist, “Renaissance man” and the founder of the first Russian university - Mikhail Lomonosov. Next year has been proclaimed the Year of Lomonosov. Coming out soon is a virtual atlas titled “The Land of Lomonosov” with a detailed description of his life and legacy.
Russia’s first natural scientist of a global scale, Lomonosov developed the atomic-molecular theory of matter, formulated the law of mass and matter conservation, laid the groundwork for physical chemistry, put forward the theory of colors and discovered that Venus has an atmosphere. He was also an artist, a historian, a poet and a philologist.
“The Land of Lomonosov” carries a map of geographic locations connected with the scholar’s name. Those are the places he lived and worked in or mentioned in his books and poems. Sergei Pchelkin, head of the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage Information Department, is the author and chief coordinator of the project.
"This will indeed be a “land of Lomonosov” that sprawls from London to the Aleutian Islands, and from Grumant, the current name of Spitsbergen, to the ancient Ukrainian town of Khotyn. Lomonosov composed an ode on the taking of Khotyn from the Turks in 1739. The atlas is divided into three parts – the first one is Lomonosov’s biography, the second one is devoted to his scientific, literary and other works, and the third one is called “Myths” because some places gave rise to myths about Mikhail Lomonosov. The atlas combines modern pictures of the places he travelled to with how they could possibly look during his lifetime."
A man of extraordinary destiny, Lomonosov was born into a fisherman’s family in a village not far from Arkhangelsk in northern Russia. At the age of 19, driven by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, he joined a fish caravan to Moscow. There he entered the Greek-Latin Academy, making rapid progress and completing a 12-year course within just a few years, graduating at the top of his class.
Lomonosov then continued his studies in St. Petersburg and later in Marburg in Germany. Back home, he plunged himself into a whirlwind of activities, making important discoveries in chemistry and physics, publishing scores of scientific papers, establishing the first Russian chemical laboratory, doing astronomical observations, mapping out the Arctic Sea Way, inventing glass and porcelain-making technologies, and in between, penning odes and formulating the theory of versification.
Lomonosov was the first Russian to be awarded honorary membership of foreign science academies. Sergei Pchelkin:
"His most important trait was firm perseverance, resolve, the inability of turning away from his goals – “noble obstinacy” as he himself put it. His other important trait was curiosity. He was interested in absolutely everything."
Regrettably, Lomonosov’s scientific heritage is little known outside Russia, perhaps slightly better in Germany where he studied chemistry and mining in Marburg and Freiburg for five years and where he got married. Filling the gap is precisely what the new virtual atlas, due out soon, is meant to achieve.
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