What a child in the family was Mendeleev. Dmitri Mendeleev: interesting facts from the life of a Russian scientist. Scholar's Forbidden Love

"Nature rests on the children of geniuses" - this common slogan does not apply to Mendeleev's children in any way. There were seven of them - three sons and four daughters. The first-born, Masha, did not live even six months (she died in September 1863). The children of Mendeleev received a more or less good education and left, albeit a small, but still quite distinguishable mark in Russian history.

Dmitry Ivanovich was married twice. In 1862, he married Feozva Nikitichnaya Leshcheva, a native of Tobolsk (hence, a countrywoman). The stepdaughter of the famous author of "The Little Humpbacked Horse" Pyotr Petrovich Ershov, Fiza (as she was called in the family), was six years older. By character, inclinations, habits, interests, she did not make her husband a harmonious couple. But who has the right to condemn the choice of Dmitry Ivanovich, especially since this act was due to the specific life circumstances of the novice scientist.

Not surprisingly, the tension in their relationship has grown over the years. Increasingly experienced dissatisfaction Mendeleev; Feozva Nikitichna pestered her husband with constant reproaches. They were too different people. In the end, in 1881, the marriage was annulled. But for the rest of their lives, they maintained a good relationship.

At the end of 1870s. Mendeleev fell passionately in love with Anna Ivanovna Popova, the daughter of a Don Cossack from Uryupinsk. She entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory in piano. Classes soon bored her. Then Anna began to attend the drawing school at the Academy of Arts. We must pay tribute: in painting, she showed a certain talent. When she met Mendeleev, she was barely 16. They got married in 1881. By age, Anna Ivanovna was suitable for Mendeleev as a daughter (she was 26 years younger).

And such marriages are often happy. Mendeleev created a second family, completing the fifth decade. Those scientific achievements that made him a special glory, or have already taken place, or reached the final stage. But "he only dreamed of peace." The name of Mendeleev enjoyed worldwide fame, and in Russia hardly anyone was more interested in the needs, situation and fate of the country than he was. Mendeleev, alas, did not find harmony in family life with Anna Ivanovna either.

And that is why children have always remained in the center of his attention and concerns.

Dmitry Ivanovich and Feozva Nikitichna brought up Vladimir (1865-1898) and Olga (1868-1950). The son chose a naval career. He graduated with honors from the Naval Cadet Corps, sailed on the frigate "Memory of Azov" around Asia and along the Far Eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean (1890-1893). He took part in the visit of the Russian squadron to France. In 1898, he retired to develop the "Project for raising the level of the Sea of ​​Azov by the dam of the Kerch Strait." It showed his talent as a hydrological engineer. Vladimir died suddenly on December 19, 1898. The following year, his father published "Project ┘". Dmitry Ivanovich wrote with deep bitterness in the preface: “My clever, loving, gentle, kind-hearted first-born son died, on whom I counted part of my testaments, since I knew lofty and truthful, modest and at the same time deep thoughts for the benefit of the motherland, unknown to others. with which he was permeated." The scientist was deeply worried about the death of Vladimir, a severe shock had a noticeable effect on his health.

Olga (1868-1950) only managed to finish the gymnasium. She married Alexei Vladimirovich Trirogov, who studied with Vladimir at the Naval Cadet Corps. And she devoted most of her life to her family. Olga wrote a book of memoirs "Mendeleev and his family", which was published in 1947.

Of all the descendants of Dmitry Ivanovich, Lyubov turned out to be a person who became known to a fairly wide circle of people. First of all, not as the daughter of a great scientist, but as the wife of Alexander Blok, the famous Russian poet of the Silver Age, as the heroine of his cycle "Poems to the Beautiful Lady". Mendeleev's stormy romance with Anyuta Popova reached a crescendo in the spring of 1881, when they traveled together through Italy and France. Lyuba was born on December 29, 1881, but, in fact, turned out to be illegitimate. Only on April 2, 1882, the wedding of the parents took place in the Admiralty Church of St. Petersburg.

Lyuba graduated from the Higher Women's Courses and was engaged in drama circles. She had no artistic talent. In 1907-1908. she played in the troupe of V.E. Meyerhold and at the V.F. Komissarzhevskaya. The married life of the Bloks proceeded chaotically and not smoothly - and in this, perhaps, Alexander and Lyubov were equally guilty. However, in the last years of the poet's life, his wife always remained by his side. By the way, she became the first public performer of the poem "The Twelve". After Blok's death, Lyubov studied the history and theory of ballet art, studied the teaching school of Agrippina Vaganova and gave acting lessons to the famous ballerinas Galina Kirillova and Natalia Dudinskaya. Lyubov Dmitrievna died in 1939.

Ivan Dmitrievich (1883-1936) was perhaps the most creatively gifted person, and only the years of Russian hard times prevented him from truly revealing his creative potential. After graduating from high school in 1901 with a gold medal, he entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, but soon transferred to the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the University. He helped his aging father a lot, for example, he performed complex calculations for his economic work. Thanks to Ivan, a posthumous edition of the work of the scientist "Addition to the knowledge of Russia" was published. After the death of Dmitry Ivanovich, the life of his son changed dramatically, little information was preserved about her. He lived in France for several years, then settled in the Mendeleev estate of Boblovo, organizing a school for peasant children there. Under him, the Boblovskaya estate burned down - a house built according to his own project of Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev. The circumstances of this sad event are still not clear.

From 1924 until his death, Ivan worked in the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures, thus continuing the work of his father. Here he conducted research on the theory of weights and designs of thermostats. He was one of the first in the USSR to study the properties of heavy water. From a young age, philosophical problems were not alien to Ivan: "Thoughts about Knowledge", "Justification of Truth" - these are the titles of books published by him in 1909-1910.

Ivan wrote memoirs about his father. There were many such after the death of the scientist. They belonged to relatives and friends, friends and colleagues, employees, and just people who happened to know and meet Dmitry Ivanovich (see, for example, collection "D.I. Mendeleev in the memoirs of his contemporaries". Ed. 2nd. M. : Atomizdat, 1973. 272 ​​p.). Written by Ivan, of course, is of particular interest. It was he who managed, perhaps, to give the most accurate and penetrating description of his father - how he knew him and how he remembered. By coincidence, Ivan's memoirs were published in full only in 1993. One of the biographers of the scientist, Mikhail Nikolaevich Mladentsev, wrote that between his son and father "there was a rare friendly relationship. Dmitry Ivanovich noted the son's natural gifts and had a friend in his face, adviser with whom he shared ideas and thoughts.

Little information has been preserved about Vasily. By the way, he and Maria were twins (born in 1886). It is known that Vasily graduated from the Naval Technical School in Kronstadt. He had the ability to technical creativity. So, he developed a model of a super-heavy tank. After the revolution, fate threw him to the Kuban, to Ekaterinodar, where he died of typhus in 1922.

Maria studied at the Higher Women's Agricultural Courses in St. Petersburg, for a long time she taught at technical schools. After the Great Patriotic War, she became the head of the D.I. Mendeleev at the Leningrad University. Together with her colleague Tamara Sergeevna Kudryavtseva, she carried out a gigantic job of disassembling and systematizing the archival documents of Dmitry Ivanovich. It is thanks to them that the scientist's archive has become convenient for use and a true "Mecca" for researchers of Mendeleev's life and work. A year before the death of Maria Dmitrievna, the first collection "Archive of D.I. Mendeleev" (1951) was published.

Ivan recalled: “In a well-known verse, Juvenal says that one should treat a child with the greatest respect. Such was the attitude towards us children. a voice spoke to us, said a harsh word. He always turned exclusively to our rational and higher side, never demanded or ordered anything, but we felt how upset he was by any of our weakness - and this acted stronger than persuasion and orders. "

One episode especially vividly characterizes the strength of Mendeleev's paternal love. In May 1889 he was invited by the British Chemical Society to give a year-long Faraday Reading. This honor was given to the most prominent chemists. Mendeleev expected to devote his report to the doctrine of periodicity, which was already gaining universal recognition. Such a performance would be a truly "finest hour" for him. But two days before the event, he receives a telegram from St. Petersburg about Vasily's illness. Without a moment's hesitation, the scientist decides to return home immediately. The text of the report "Periodic law of chemical elements" was read for him by James Dewar.

And one cannot read Mendeleev’s diary entry of July 10, 1905 without excitement: “In total, more than four subjects made up my name: the periodic law, studies of the elasticity of gases, the understanding of solutions as associations, and Fundamentals of Chemistry. This is all my wealth. It is not taken from someone, but produced by me, these are my children, and, alas, I cherish them very much, just as much as children.

Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907) - Russian scientist and encyclopedist. In 1869 he discovered the periodic law of chemical elements - one of the basic laws of natural science. He left over 500 printed works, among which the classic "Fundamentals of Chemistry" - the first harmonious presentation of inorganic chemistry. Also D.I. Mendeleev is the author of fundamental research in physics, metrology, aeronautics, meteorology, agriculture, economics, public education, closely related to the needs of Russia's economic development. Organizer and first director of the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures.

Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev was born on February 8, 1834 in Tobolsk in the family of Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev, who at that time held the position of director of the Tobolsk gymnasium and schools of the Tobolsk district. Dmitry was the last, seventeenth child in the family. In 1841-1849. studied at the Tobolsk gymnasium.

Mendeleev received his higher education at the Department of Natural Sciences of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Main Pedagogical Institute in St. Petersburg, the course of which he completed in 1855 with a gold medal. In 1856 he defended his master's thesis at St. Petersburg University and from 1857 he taught a course in organic chemistry there as an associate professor. In 1859-1861. he was on a scientific mission in Heidelberg, where he became friends with many scientists who were there, including A.P. Borodin and I.M. Sechenov. There he worked in his small home laboratory, as well as in the laboratory of R. Bunsen at the University of Heidelberg. In 1861, he published the textbook "Organic Chemistry", which was awarded the Demidov Prize by the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

In 1862, Mendeleev married the stepdaughter of the famous author of The Little Humpbacked Horse, Pyotr Pavlovich Ershov, Feozva Nikitichnaya Leshcheva, a native of Tobolsk. In this marriage, he had three children, but one daughter died in infancy. In 1865, the scientist acquired the Boblovo estate in the Moscow province, where he was engaged in agrochemistry and agriculture. F.N. Leshcheva and her children lived there most of the time.

In 1864-1866. DI. Mendeleev was a professor at the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. In 1865 he defended his doctoral dissertation "On the combination of alcohol with water" and at the same time was approved as a professor at St. Petersburg University. Mendeleev also taught at other higher educational institutions. He took an active part in public life, speaking in print demanding permission to read public lectures, protested against circulars restricting the rights of students, and discussed a new university charter.

Mendeleev's discovery of the periodic law dates back to March 1, 1869, when he compiled a table entitled "Experience of a system of elements based on their atomic weight and chemical similarity." It was the result of years of searching. He compiled several versions of the periodic system and, on its basis, corrected the atomic weights of some known elements, predicted the existence and properties of still unknown elements. At first, the system itself, the corrections made, and Mendeleev's forecasts were met with restraint. But after the discovery of the elements predicted by him (gallium, germanium, scandium), the periodic law began to gain recognition. The periodic system was a kind of guiding map in the study of inorganic chemistry and in research work in this area.

In 1868, Mendeleev became one of the organizers of the Russian Chemical Society.

At the end of the 1870s. Dmitri Mendeleev fell passionately in love with Anna Ivanovna Popova, the daughter of a Don Cossack from Uryupinsk. In the second marriage, D. I. Mendeleev had four children. DI. Mendeleev was the father-in-law of the Russian poet Alexander Blok, who was married to his daughter Lyubov.

Since 1876, Dmitry Mendeleev, a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, in 1880 was nominated for academician, but was voted out, which caused a sharp public outcry.

In 1890, Mendeleev, being a professor at St. Petersburg University, resigned in protest against the oppression of students. Almost forcibly cut off from science, Dmitri Mendeleev devotes all his strength to practical problems.

With his participation, in 1890 a draft of a new customs tariff was created, in which a protective system was consistently implemented, and in 1891 a wonderful book was published: “Explanatory Tariff”, which provides a commentary on this project and, at the same time, a deeply thought-out overview of industry , indicating its needs and future prospects. In 1891, the Naval and Military Ministry entrusted Mendeleev with the development of the issue of smokeless powder, and he (after a trip abroad) in 1892 brilliantly fulfilled this task. The "pyrocollodium" he proposed turned out to be an excellent type of smokeless powder, moreover, universal and easily adaptable to any firearm.

Since 1891, Mendeleev has been actively involved in the Brockhaus-Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, as the editor of the chemical-technical and factory department and the author of many articles that adorn this publication. In 1900-1902. Dmitry Mendeleev edits the "Library of Industry" (published by Brockhaus-Efron), where he owns the issue of "Teaching about Industry". Since 1904, “Cherished Thoughts” began to appear - Mendeleev’s historical, philosophical and socio-economic treatise, which contains, as it were, his testament to posterity, the results of what he experienced and thought about various issues related to the economic, state and social life of Russia.

Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev died on January 20, 1907 from pneumonia. His funeral, accepted at the expense of the state, was a real national mourning. The Department of Chemistry of the Russian Physical-Chemical Society established two awards in honor of Mendeleev for the best works in chemistry. Mendeleev's library, along with the furnishings of his office, was acquired by Petrograd University and is stored in a special room that once formed part of his apartment.

2014 marks exactly 180 years since the birth of Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. In honor of the anniversary, we bring you nine interesting facts about his life.

1. The seventeenth child in the family
Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev was born on February 8, 1834 in Tobolsk, the first capital of the Siberian Territory. He was the last in the family - the seventeenth child. The family, however, was not so big: out of 17 children, eight died in infancy.
Dmitry's father, Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev, held the honorary position of director of the Tobolsk gymnasium. He died when Dmitry was 13 years old, so his mother, Maria Dmitrievna, had to support a large family, who made a lot of efforts to ensure that her children received a decent education. Thanks to her, Dmitry was able to enter the Main Pedagogical Institute (now St. Petersburg State University).

2. Recalcitrant teacher
Dmitri Mendeleev had an impressive teaching experience. He worked as a senior teacher of natural sciences at the Simferopol Men's Gymnasium (1855) and the Richelieu Lyceum in Odessa (1855-56), and from 1857 he began teaching at the Imperial St. Petersburg University, where he worked for a total of about 30 years. However, due to a conflict with the Minister of Education Ivan Delyanov, Mendeleev left the university in 1890. The reason for the conflict was the minister's refusal to accept the students' petition. Relatives and friends remember Dmitry Ivanovich as a stubborn man who did not want to give in. This is what happened with the petition. Mendeleev enjoyed great prestige among students. When student unrest broke out at the university in March 1890, he was invited to one of the discussions and asked to submit a petition to the Government, in which the students set out their wishes, among which, in particular, was freedom of speech and the press. Dmitry Ivanovich reacted drastically to Delyanov's refusal. His last lecture, which the scientist gave on March 22, 1890, he concluded with the words: "I humbly ask you not to accompany my departure with applause for many different reasons."

3. "Inventor" of vodka
There is an opinion that Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev invented vodka. However, this alcoholic drink, of course, existed long before 1865, when he defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic "Discourse on the combination of alcohol with water." It was this work that gave rise to the legend, according to which he "took part in the development of vodka production." In his book “National Legend: Was Mendeleev the Creator of Russian “Monopoly” Vodka”, Doctor of Chemistry and Director of the Museum-Archive D.I. Mendeleev at Leningrad State University Dmitriev Igor Sergeevich refutes this fact. In particular, he claims that “the dissertation was devoted to the study of the specific gravity of alcohol-water solutions depending on the concentration of the latter and temperature, and Mendeleev himself was primarily interested in completely different areas of concentrations, above 40% by weight.”

4. About the dream that never happened
There is an opinion that once in a dream Mendeleev saw the periodic table of chemical elements, after which he invented it. However, the scientist refuted this legend, answering the following: “I have been thinking about it for twenty years, but you think: I sat and suddenly ... it’s ready.” By the way, the discovery of the periodic law occurred in February 1869. On February 17, Dmitri Mendeleev, getting ready to go, drew a sketch of a table on the back of an inconspicuous letter, in which he was invited to come and help the production. The scientist will later say that then "the idea was involuntarily born that there should be a connection between mass and chemical properties." So, he wrote on separate cards the names of all known elements, their atomic weight and properties, and then arranged them in order. The trip had to be postponed - the scientist plunged headlong into work, as a result of which the periodic law of chemical elements was discovered. It is worth noting that at that time about 60 chemical elements were studied, and more than thirty were still waiting for their time. In 1870, Mendeleev calculated the atomic masses of the elements, which in his table remained "empty" unexplored places. So scientists predicted the existence of "ekaaluminum" (gallium), "ekabor" (scandium), "ekasilicon" (germanium) and other elements.

5. Suitcase master
The great scientist was engaged not only in scientific work. In his free time, he liked to make ... suitcases. Mendeleev mastered this craft in Simferopol, when the gymnasium where he taught was closed due to the Crimean War. The scientist did not like to sit idle, so he found himself an exciting pastime: he began to bind books and glue all kinds of improvised items, such as frames and tables. He especially liked to mess around with travel bags. So Mendeleev got an interesting occupation - the manufacture of suitcases, which he brought to perfection. Even when the scientist went blind in 1895, he continued to glue the suitcases by touch. Once, during the next purchase of leather, one buyer asked the merchant who this person was, to which he received the answer: "This is the famous, famous suitcase master Mendeleev!"

6. Not a Nobel laureate
Dmitri Mendeleev was nominated for the Nobel Prize several times but never received it. The first time this happened was in 1905. Then the German organic chemist Adolf Bayer became the laureate. A year later, the scientist was declared the winner of the prize, but the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences overturned this decision in favor of the French scientist Henri Moissan for the discovery of fluorine. In 1907, a proposal was made to share the prize with the Italian chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro, but this time fate intervened. On February 2, 1907, at the age of 72, Mendeleev passed away. Perhaps the reason why the scientist did not become the owner of the long-awaited prize was the conflict between Dmitry Ivanovich and the Nobel brothers. By the end of the 19th century, enterprising Swedes had become rich on Baku oil and began to control more than 13% of Russian deposits. In 1886, when the price of oil plummeted, the Nobel brothers suggested that the government raise the tax, arguing that the oil was rapidly depleting. Thus, a price increase of 15 kopecks per pound of oil provided them with getting rid of competitors. A special commission was formed under the Ministry of State Property, which included Mendeleev. The scientist was an opponent of the tax and denied the rumor about the depletion of oil, which angered the Nobels.

7. Balloon flights
Dmitri Mendeleev also worked on the design of aircraft, with the help of which he planned to study the temperature, pressure and humidity in the upper atmosphere. In 1875, he proposed a project for a stratospheric balloon with a volume of 3600 m³. He also developed a project for a controlled balloon with engines. In 1878, the scientist flew in a tethered balloon by Henri Giffard at the World Exhibition in Paris. After 9 years, he again took to the air. This time, a wasteland in the northwest of the city of Klin was chosen as the place for the experiment. On August 7, 1887, in the Russian balloon provided by the Military Ministry (volume 700 m³), ​​Mendeleev single-handedly rose to a height of more than 3000 meters. The flight lasted three hours. During this time, the scientist measured pressure and temperature, and also witnessed a total solar eclipse. This flight was awarded the medal of the French Academy of Aerostatic Meteorology.
8. Pioneer in icebreaking
Interestingly, of the total number of works, the scientist devoted about 10% to chemistry. Among other things, Mendeleev paid attention to shipbuilding and the development of Arctic navigation, about which he wrote about 40 works. He was directly involved in the construction project of the world's first Arctic icebreaker "Ermak", which was first launched on October 29, 1898. For his great contribution to the development of the Arctic, an underwater ridge in the Arctic Ocean, discovered in 1949, was named after the scientist.

9. Block's father-in-law
Mendeleev said that "he experienced a lot in his life, but he knows nothing better than children." People who knew him said that he often treated the children of guards in the Chamber of Weights and Measures, where he worked, with sweets, and also arranged a New Year tree for them at his own expense. Dmitry Ivanovich was the father of six children: two were born from his first marriage to Feozva Leshcheva, four from his second marriage to Anna Popova.
The eldest son Vladimir was a naval officer. He was lucky enough to sail on the frigate "Memory of Azov", on which Nicholas II was supposed to go on a trip to the Far East. After the wedding with the daughter of the artist-itinerant Varvara Kirillovna Lemokh, he suddenly died. About the eldest daughter Olga, it is known that she bred thoroughbred hunting dogs, and after the revolution she was forced to move to Moscow, where, under the patronage of Dzerzhinsky, she worked as a consultant for a service dog kennel. Her younger sister, Maria Dmitrievna Kuzmina, also worked with dogs, but after the war she became the head of her father's museum at Leningrad State University. The fate of Lyuba's daughter was interesting. She worked as an artist in the Meyerhold troupe and married Alexander Blok. Ivan followed in the footsteps of his father, who worked at the Institute of Metrology. But the fate of the youngest son Vasily was very mysterious. He studied at the shipbuilding department of the Kronstadt Naval Engineering School, but never completed his studies. They say that Vasily went against his parental will, marrying the common Fen, after which he left home. Nothing was heard about him for a long time, but later it turned out that he died in 1922 in Krasnodar, having contracted typhoid fever from his wife.

Carried away by Alexander Blok's poems, I learned that little Sasha Blok, the grandson of the chemist Beketov, and Lyubochka Mendeleev, Mendeleev's daughter, grew up together, then grew up, and, having met already at an older age, felt interest in each other, got married. The marriage was not very successful. complicated, but that's another story. And just recently I read that Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev had two families: his first wife with the amazing name Feozva bore him three children: Maria, Vladimir and Olga. Maria died in infancy, but Volodya grew up and pleased his father with his academic success.

Volodya Mendeleev (1865 - 1898) and his mother Feozva (Fiza) Nikitichna, nee. Leshchev.

The boy walks in the garden and reads books, takes photographs with his father; he dreams of the sea and is preparing to enter the Naval School. His father sets him up for serious study; he knows that people from the Naval College go not only to the fleet, but also to science, and one needs to get used to serious scientific literature from an early age.
http://www.library.spbu.ru/bbk/bookcoll/priormat/p15.php .

Volodya connected his life with the sea. he graduated from the Naval College and served as an officer in the navy. In 1890, he was assigned to the frigate "Memory of Azov", on which Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich (future Emperor Nicholas II) was to go to Greece, Egypt, and India. Ceylon, Hong Kong and at the end of the trip to Japan. The highest visit ended in a scandal: one of the policemen, on the basis of samurai complexes, wounded the crown prince with a sword. During the investigation of this incident, Vladimir worked as a photographer in the investigation team, because. his father taught him the principles of photography. At this time, Vladimir, living in Nagasaki, made a temporary marriage contact with a Japanese woman. This was a common procedure for European sailors. In 1893, Vladimir and his wife Taki Hideshima had a daughter, Ofuji, whom Vladimir never saw, because. "Memory of Azov" returned to Russia. Vladimir in Russia retired. became an inspector for maritime education and married the daughter of the painter K. Lemokh, Varvara. In 1898 he contracted influenza and died. DI. Mendeleev always remembered the "Japanese granddaughter", he received a letter from Taki, and after the death of his beloved son, Mendeleev sent money to Japan. By the way, he was also on the deck of the frigate "Memory of Azov" among the persons accompanying Tsarevich Nicholas.

Vladimir Mendeleev (1865 - 1898). Japanese wife of Vladimir with daughter Ofuji.

Vladimir died suddenly on December 19, 1898. “My clever, loving, gentle, kind-hearted first-born son died, on whom I counted part of my covenants, because I knew high and truthful, modest and at the same time deep thoughts for the benefit of the motherland, unknown to others, with which he was permeated." - wrote D.I. Mendeleev.
in 1899, he prepared for publication Vladimir's unfinished work "Project for raising the level of the Sea of ​​Azov by the dam of the Kerch Strait."

Olga Mendeleeva (1868 - 1950), Trirogova.

Vladimir's younger sister, Olga Dmitrievna Mendeleeva, in the marriage of Trirogov (1868 - 1950), bred hunting dogs before the revolution, and after the revolution she was engaged in service dogs. She wrote a book about her family, which was published in 1947. These are the children of D.I. Mendeleev from his first marriage. But at the age of 43, Dmitry Ivanovich fell passionately in love with a young girl of eighteen, Anna Popova from Uryupinsk (daughter of a Cossack). There were four children in this marriage: Love (born 1881), Ivan (born 1883), twins Maria and Vasily (born 1886).
Lyubov Dmitrievna graduated from the Higher Women's Courses, studied in drama circles, and had outstanding acting abilities. In 1907 - 1908 she played in the troupe of V.E. Meyerhold and at the V.F. Komissarzhevskaya. In 1903 Lyubov married the poet Alexander Blok. It was she who was the heroine of his poems dedicated to the Beautiful Lady. Lyubov Dmitrievna died in 1939: she was walking across the room and already dead she fell down.
Ivan Dmitrievich (1883-1936) was perhaps the most creatively gifted person. He helped his aging father a lot, for example, he performed complex calculations for his economic work. Thanks to Ivan, a posthumous edition of the work of the scientist "Addition to the knowledge of Russia" was published. From 1924 until his death, Ivan worked in the Main Chamber of Weights and Measures, thus continuing the work of his father. Here he conducted research on the theory of weights and designs of thermostats. He was one of the first in the USSR to study the properties of heavy water. From a young age, philosophical problems were not alien to Ivan.. Between father and son there was a complete mutual understanding of trust. Ivan Dmitrievich died in 1936.

Anna Mendeleeva - the second wife of Lyubov Mendeleev (1881 - 1939)
DI. Mendeleev.

Ivan Mendeleev (1883-1936) Vasily Mendeleev (1886 - 1922).

Little is known about the youngest son of Dmitry Ivanovich, Vasily (1886 - 1922): he entered the Naval Engineering School in Kronstadt, but did not finish it. He was also a creative person, worked as a designer at St. Petersburg shipyards, developing projects for submarines and minelayers. It is known that Vasily Mendeleev developed a model of a super-heavy tank. However, against the will of his mother, Vasily married a simple girl Fenya. Over time, he quit his job, and he and Fenya went to her relatives in the Kuban, where he died of typhus in 1922. His twin sister Maria graduated from the Higher Women's Agricultural Courses and worked as a teacher in various technical schools for a long time. She was considered a major specialist in breeding pointing dogs, after the war she was in charge of her father's museum at Leningrad University. She had a daughter - Ekaterina Kamenskaya, in 1983 she was still alive. She has been searching for her calling for a long time. tried to become an artist, an actress, then entered the Faculty of History of Leningrad University and became a specialist in the history and culture of the peoples of Polynesia. At one time she worked in the Kunstkamera. At the beginning of the 21st century, her son Alexander, the great-grandson of Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev, was still alive. Now he could be about 73 years old.

Granddaughter D.I. Mendeleev - Ekaterina She with her son Alexander.
Kamenskaya.
http://scandaly.ru/2013/10/25/himiya-sudbyi/
Unfortunately, the fate of Ekaterina Mendeleeva - Kamenskaya is very sad. At first everything was fine: studies, husbands, son. Mom works in the D.I. Mendeleev Museum. This is Catherine's home. She took all the valuable things of D.I. Mendeleev. They have become museum treasures. And in old age she found herself without a livelihood, and her grandfather's things belonged to the state. It didn’t mention the scientist’s granddaughter. The fate of Sasha, the great-grandson of Mendeleev, is even sadder: he was in prison for a fight, then he could not get a job, he drank. Further fate is unknown.

Maria Dmitrievna Kornilieva (1793-1850) was born in Siberia, in an old famous merchant family. According to her memoirs, the ancestor of the Kornilievs was the baptized Kalmyk Yakov Vasilievich. As a boy, he was taken by some Russian merchant from the Dzungar Khanate to Tobolsk. At the end of the 18th century, Jacob received freedom, engaged in grain trading, succeeded and married a Russian, the daughter of a merchant. “But one day Yakov caught a cold, but he didn’t get on his feet ...” The widow of Yakov Vasilyevich Anna Kornilyeva, a woman with a strong character, did not lose heart and continued her husband’s work. She herself raised five sons and gave her daughter in marriage. All the sons of Yakov and Anna Korniliev became successful entrepreneurs and educators who did a lot for the development of their native land.

The most successful and prosperous was the youngest son Vasily, the grandfather of Maria Dmitrievna. Vasily Yakovlevich Korniliev built the first paper mill and printing house in Siberia. He owned a glass factory in the village of Aremzyany, created the "School House" in Tobolsk. Vasily Korniliev published the first books and magazines in Siberia, of which the Irtysh magazine was especially famous. The direction of the magazine was reflected by the epigraph on the title page, taken from G. Derzhavin's ode:

Untying the mind and hands
Commands to love trades, science
And find happiness at home.

Maria Dmitrievna's father - Dmitry Vasilyevich Korniliev - a talented, educated person, continued his father's work. He published the magazines The Irtysh Conquering Ipokrena and The Historical Library, where his own articles were also published. One can marvel at the breadth of his knowledge. The titles of the works themselves speak of this: “About Siberia”, “About the Buryats and Teleuts”, “About the Yakuts and Tungus”, “News about ancient Tatar princes in Siberia”, “About Chinese tea trees”…

Unfortunately, the academic and publishing activities of Dmitry Korniliev did not last long. After the death of his wife, he fell seriously ill and could no longer work. Dmitry Vasilievich was even forced to transfer from merchants to philistines. The only wealth of the impoverished Korniliev family was a glass factory in Aremzyany and a unique library, which grandfather Vasily Yakovlevich began to collect.

The mother of Maria Konilyeva, Ekaterina Efimovna Shevyrdina, the daughter of a Tobolsk merchant, died when the children of Maria and Vasily were not even ten years old. Maternal relatives took care of the orphans.

Maria received an excellent home education. Biographers write that the girl independently completed the gymnasium course with her brother. It may have passed; after all, there were no women's gymnasiums in Tobolsk yet. As for "on your own", that's unlikely. After all, someone taught Maria Kornilyeva to play the piano and instilled in her a taste for good literature.

As you know, merchants brought up their daughters, imitating the nobility. Girls were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, European languages, dancing, playing the piano and other musical instruments. But we do not know who exactly was involved in the upbringing and education of Maria Kornilyeva.

Maria's brother Vasily left for Moscow, where, thanks to an excellent education, he made a successful career and achieved a high position in society. He served as the chief manager of the Trubetskoy estate. The most famous people of Moscow, figures of science and culture gathered in the house of Vasily Korniliev on Pokrovka: I. I. Dmitriev, M. P. Pogodin, E. A. Baratynsky, F. N. Glinka, I. M. Snegirev, S. L Pushkin, Ukrainian poet IP Borozdna and others.

In 1809, 16-year-old Maria Dmitrievna was married to a teacher at the Tobolsk gymnasium, Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev. In 1818, her husband received a promotion: the position of superintendent of schools in the Tambov province. By this time, there were already three daughters in the Mendeleev family: Maria (1811), Olga (1815), Ekaterina (1816). Ivan Pavlovich moved the family together with Maria Dmitrievna's sick father to Central Russia. Until a certain time, everything went well with the Mendeleevs. Almost every year, children were born in the family. But due to epidemics, childhood infectious diseases and the lack of vaccinations, several children died in infancy.

In 1821, Maria Dmitrievna gave birth to her fourth daughter, Apollinaria. A little later, Ivan Pavlovich was offered the position of director of a classical gymnasium in Saratov, where the Mendeleevs moved. In 1823, Maria Dmitrievna gave birth to a fifth daughter, Elizabeth, and a year later, a son, Ivan.

In 1826, a great grief happened in the family: the beloved daughter, the first child of the Mendeleevs, 15-year-old Masha, died of consumption. “The mother was in despair to the point that she could not see other children. We all had long hair, which our mother curled for us at night, and during the day they lay behind us in long curls - this was the case with Mashenka, and Olenka, and with me. They buried Masha, my mother ordered us to cut our hair, and she could no longer curl us, ”recalled daughter Ekaterina.

At this time, I.P. Mendeleev began to have trouble in his service. The intelligent soft Ivan Pavlovich amassed ill-wishers, they began to write denunciations against him. It got to the point that the family was threatened with a new move to a remote wilderness.

And then the wife undertook to save the family, in which, among other things, because of the disorder of life, children were dying. Being once again pregnant, Maria Dmitrievna wrote desperate letters to relatives and friends, and, barely recovering from childbirth, traveled around with visits to all the influential people of the city. In the end, she achieved for her husband the position of director of the Tobolsk gymnasium. The family moved to Tobolsk, where the Mendeleevs occupied several rooms in the gymnasium, since the director was entitled to a free apartment.

Having settled in a new place, Ivan Pavlovich and Maria Dmitrievna began to live, as they said then, "an open house." On weekends, work colleagues, officials, merchants and manufacturers gathered at the head of the gymnasium, discussed the news, played cards, played music, and made new acquaintances. It is known that I.P. Mendeleev was visited by the son of the governor of Tobolsk, composer A.A. Alyabyev, where he “played four-handed music with his wife, amateur pianist Maria Dmitrievna.”

In 1828, Maria Mendeleeva gave birth to a daughter, Masha, and in 1832, a son, Pavel. Perhaps the mother of a large family sometimes had no time for dinner parties. However, the eldest daughters Olga and Ekaterina were already brides, and marrying off their daughters was the first duty of the parents. Arranging the fate of homeless women is not an easy task. For this reason, Ivan Pavlovich and Maria Dmitrievna had to win over suitors by all means.

Finally, the long-awaited event happened in the family. In 1833, the Mendeleevs married their eldest daughter Olga to the merchant and manufacturer I.P. Medvedev. In a letter to her husband’s relatives, Maria Dmitrievna rejoiced: “And you, dearest mother, I humbly ask you to accept a kind and intelligent son-in-law given to us by God as your grandchildren. He is not an official, but due to his well-being and extensive institutions, he deserved the attention of the highest authorities, and last year he was granted a medal by the Sovereign Emperor for the organization of his factories. Our Olinka is happy and rich.”

But the prosperity of the family did not last long. Ivan Pavlovich began to lose his sight, in 1834 he became blind, lost his position as director of the gymnasium and his apartment. The Mendeleev family was in distress. It was impossible to feed eight people on Ivan Pavlovich's meager pension. The breadwinner fell into depression, complicating the already difficult life of Maria Dmitrievna, who was again expecting a child.

For help, she turned to her brother, who lived in Moscow. Vasily Dmitrievich Korniliev offered his sister the management of a small glass factory, which he had inherited. All income received after the sale of products, Maria Dmitrievna had the right to use for the needs of her family.

This plant was located a few miles from Tobolsk, in the village of Upper Aremzyany, where the Mendeleevs moved, settling in a large beautiful house next to the plant.

On February 8, 1834, the last son, the seventeenth child, was born - Dmitry, the future great scientist. In the church book, he was listed as the 14th child, since three babies in the family died immediately after birth, before they lived to be baptized. Six more children died before Mitya was born. In the year of his birth, he had two brothers and five sisters.

Immediately after giving birth, Maria Dmitrievna began to work at the factory. In a few years, thanks to superhuman efforts, she managed to achieve what seemed impossible: without starting capital, to raise a virtually dead enterprise.

Contrary to the customs and rules of the breeders, Maria Mendeleeva began to pay salaries to the peasants attached to the plant, which earned the great love of the workers. On her instructions, a church and a school for peasant children began to be built in the village.

At the same time, she took up agriculture, sowing grain, raising livestock and poultry. Thus, Maria Dmitrievna managed to simultaneously manage the plant, run the household, take care of the children and her blind husband. AND THIS HAS SURVIVED SEVENTEEN BIRTH!

In 1835, Vasily Dmitrievich Korniliev took the eldest son of the Mendeleevs, Ivan, to his place and placed him in the Moscow University Noble Boarding School.

In 1837, the mother of the family already had the means to send her husband, accompanied by her daughter Ekaterina, to Moscow, to a well-known eye surgeon. Maria Dmitrievna's letters to Katenka in Moscow are permeated with unusual tenderness for Ivan Pavlovich. She asks her children to support and console their father: “Ah, he always seemed to me the younger Tobit (biblical character)!” Strong, strong-willed, businesslike, Maria Dmitrievna was a romantic dreamer in her soul.

In a Moscow clinic, Ivan Pavlovich underwent a successful operation and almost regained his sight. However, he was not taken back to work at the gymnasium, even as a teacher. Of course, I. P. Mendeleev was very worried because of his helpless position. He helped the family with a very modest pension and all possible assistance to his wife in the conduct of factory affairs. Ivan Pavlovich began to get sick often, the doctors diagnosed him with consumption. But, despite all the failures and troubles that befell the head of the family, Maria Dmitrievna always remained a devoted and loving wife, literally, “both in sorrow and in joy, in wealth and poverty, in sickness and health.” Thanks to the great love and mutual deep respect of the parents for each other, the authority of the father and mother in the eyes of the children was unshakable.

In his memoirs, D. I. Mendeleev, no longer declining in his life, called his parents “dad” and “mother” with childish respect.

Maria Dmitrievna, a woman of outstanding intelligence and energy, a faithful wife and a loving mother, was very attentive to the upbringing and education of her children. In the evenings, the mother gathered the children in the living room, played the piano or read aloud. In the Mendeleev family, two things were revered: books and work.

In the future, Dmitry Ivanovich always remembered these evenings of “sitting in Aremzyany” as the happiest time of his life. The great scientist loved poetry, especially M. Yu. Lermontov's poem "The Demon". It was a favorite work of the mother, which she often read aloud at the request of the children.

Ivan Pavlovich also took a great part in the upbringing of children. As a professional teacher, teacher of literature and fine arts, he was engaged in the education of his daughters. The fact is that only in 1852 the first women's educational institution was opened in Tobolsk.

The youngest son of Maria Dmitrievna was always surrounded by her special care and love. They almost never parted. Mother often took little Mitya with her to the factory, where he spent hours watching how glass was made from river sand, and could not tear his fascinated gaze from the work of glassblowers. Sometimes a glass ball or some figure was blown especially for him. All these fantastic actions of the masters shook the imagination of the child. It was here, observing the miraculous transformations of glass, that the future genius came into contact with science, to which he then devoted his life.

Later, Mendeleev recalled: “There, at the glass factory run by my mother, I got my first impressions of nature, people, industrial affairs.”

At the age of three, Mitya fell ill with smallpox and almost died. The mother was in despair, afraid of losing another child. Maria Dmitrievna spent days and nights at the bedside of her sick son. For several days Mitya tossed about in the heat, often falling into oblivion. The poor mother, in order to restore her son's consciousness, began to read adventure literature to him incessantly.

After the crisis passed, the boy was prescribed strict bed rest. So that her son would not be bored, Maria Dmitrievna brought him to bed rare copies of encyclopedias with rich illustrations from the unique Korniliev library. It was at this time that she began to teach Mitya to read and write. Thus, a loving mother not only taught him to read (it is known that Mendeleev read on his own at the age of four), but also woke up his inquisitive soul, thirsty for knowledge.

According to the memoirs of Mendeleev himself, it was his mother who instilled in him a love of science and a passion for reading. In the future, one of the most brilliant scientists of the 19th century amazed his contemporaries and continues to amaze us with his versatile activities and encyclopedic knowledge.

After Mitya's illness, it was the duty of the sisters to protect their brother so that nothing would happen to him. For any misconduct, Mitya was punished by the sisters - "for oversight."

During this period of life, the Mendeleev family reached the peak of financial prosperity. In 1839, Ivan Pavlovich and Maria Dmitrievna married their second daughter Ekaterina to a forty-year-old widower with two children, Yakov Semyonovich Kapustin. After the wedding, the newlyweds went to Omsk, at the place of service of the spouse, the head of the department of the Main Directorate of Western Siberia. Maria Dmitrievna bought a solid house for her family from her son-in-law in Tobolsk.

All these joyful events and worries were overshadowed by the news from Moscow: son Ivan got in touch with a bad company and was expelled from the Moscow boarding school for some serious misconduct.

Immediately after the departure of Katenka and Ya. S. Kapustin to Omsk, she wrote them a letter: “I am still in a state of insensibility, but I try to drown out the cry of the soul. I am destined to drink from the cup of bitterness all my life, and therefore I have long been related to the blows of fate. With the last farewell kiss, when the tarantass was out of sight, I relieved my chest with hot tears and prayer before the icon of the Lady. Dearest and kindest Yakov Semyonovich! Dear daughter! Now I will not tell you about the feelings of my heart, about my love for everyone, about separation from you. A spiritual storm is raging, and the murderous grief of Ivan Pavlovich torments the heart.

In the same letter, Maria Dmitrievna shared her feelings about the fate of Vanechka: “The moral illness of my son torments my soul, and I cannot rush to help him! I cannot heal the illness of his soul with my tears, my advice, my example! It's hard, it's hard for my heart, my dear, kind children! But with all the blows of fate, I have already become accustomed to being harder than stone.

“I dearly love all my children, but being strict with the rules of honor and virtue, I have always demanded and will demand from them unconditional obedience to circumstances and unconditional obedience to the laws of honor and virtue” (June 1, 1839).

"O! if I had known two years in advance about his actions, then to save him from disgrace I would then have taken my own measures and my characteristic determination. His behavior would be corrected by the severity of parental authority, the severity of the mother, who puts the nobility of feelings above all the treasures and honors of the world! (June 10, 1839).

Vasily Korniliev suggested that Maria Dmitrievna leave Ivan in Moscow in order to give him the opportunity to continue his education. “My brother consoles us with the fact,” she wrote to Kapustin on June 16, 1839, “that Vanechka, having entered the Land Survey Institute, will become an officer in three years and get a job with a good salary, but I strongly, as a mother, cannot agree to this ... I beg brother, to return to us a dying son, whose officership without morality will only increase our disgrace ... Let our son remain here as a simple clerk in some court if he does not study in order to finish the gymnasium course in teaching science; let him share with us all the sorrow of our situation ... The true dignity of a person is honor, virtue, love for one's neighbor. Let him stay three more years at the gymnasium and four at the university, he will be 23 years old and his passions will be suppressed, or he will perish without entering the world. Moral sickness is cruel and healing must be long-lasting... Let him lose years of service, but he will gain peace of conscience. An official with a vile soul is more contemptuous for me than an honest and kind commoner. If Vanechka is destined to die and become a bad person, I will take this as God's just punishment of parents who do not care about the upbringing of their children, and he will be an example for others who do not care about the morality of their children.

In all the troubles of the children, Maria Dmitrievna always blamed only herself, considering herself a "guilty mother." After what happened to Ivan, she decided to leave the factory and move her family to Tobolsk in order to prepare her younger sons for admission to the gymnasium and later to the university.

“The past cannot be returned. I pity the youth of my daughters, in order to protect them from the needs and sorrows that awaited them in the city during the resignation of Ivan Pavlovich, I decided to sacrifice myself, and the Aremzyansky shelter gave my husband and daughters a calm refuge and independence. Alone I carried my cross with patience and in silence. God generously rewarded my labors for the good of the family, and I rejoiced at the arrangement of the factory ... ”(August 11, 1839).

“Now that my strength, health and eyesight have changed, when I can no longer spend sleepless nights in Guta and pottery ... I refused to look for gold in my grief; at my age and with my family, it would be foolish to enter into this operation. Now I need all the strength of my soul to take up the education of my sons.

"Oh factory! How many donations I brought, managing it. I feel that my letter upsets you. I will not leave the factories, but everything is not the same there, there is no manager, there is no vigilant supervision, and the income is so wrong.

In the end, Maria Dmitrievna hired a manager, leaving herself to manage all the office accounts and make the main decisions. She began to gradually transport her family and property to Tobolsk. “After spending two days at the factory, I returned yesterday at two o’clock before midnight, and after me at 7 o’clock in the morning came my convoy with chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys and their tribe and a nanny, and four dairy cows with Gerkushey and his wife” - wrote Maria Dmitrievna to her daughter Ekaterina.

The Mendeleev family lived in the village of Upper Aremzyany for about six years. In 1841, the Mendeleevs finally moved to Tobolsk.

“I am returning to the most sacred duties of the mother of my youngest children, I devote all the free hours of the day to them, and therefore time quickly rushes for me ...” (from a letter to M. Mendeleeva).

To this, Maria Dmitrievna added: “In order to develop the abilities of Pasha and Mitya, I must, I am obliged to sacrifice everything ... having the ability given to me by God for this. I do not lose heart, I do not cry, I do not grieve, and I firmly hope that everything will be arranged for the good of my children, to whom my whole life is dedicated.

In another letter: “My dear Katenka! I am sure that, knowing my character, you will not think that I am already unhappy. No, my friend, as long as I am not deprived of the love of my children, as long as I have the strength to take care of their well-being, I cannot call myself unhappy and know how to be content with little. Be calm and keep yourself in your position (Catherine was pregnant) ... Now I am happier than I was at the factory. I am in the circle of my family, I am the mother of my children, and not a worker.

Upon Ivan's arrival, his mother assigned him to the Tobolsk gymnasium. She joyfully informs her daughter: "... Vanechka, having arrived from Moscow, and, thanks to God, finished the course with praise." “We are happy in family life,” she wrote. - Satisfied with their solitude, and our days flow peacefully. Masha, Pasha, Mitya are studying, I am calm and do not grieve that I should deny myself pleasures.

“Some premonition tells me that I must prepare myself to endure a revolution in life ... I will be with you in the winter ... I hope that I will be comforted by the joy of carrying my child in my arms, children dear to my heart. Take care of yourself, my dear Katya! I kiss you all and remain your loving mother M. M.”

More than anything in the world, Maria Dmitrievna strove to give her children a good education, especially her sons. She invited teachers to properly prepare Pasha and Mitya for entering the gymnasium. In a letter to her daughter, Mendeleeva described her usual day as follows: “Surrounded by my children, I devote the rest of my life to them, because I am already 50 years old, and I consider myself happy that in this position I can fulfill my duties regarding the moral education of my younger sons. , Pasha and Mitya. My day passes pleasantly, in silence, with the teachings of my sons ... After dinner, I myself study with them until 5 o'clock.

Maria Dmitrievna raised her children in strictness, especially girls. The daughters helped their mother in housekeeping, looked after their younger brothers, learned needlework, and from the age of 12 they themselves began to sew clothes for the family. It was easier for the boys, there was less demand from them.

The youngest, Mitya, ruled over all. As happens in large families, in order to earn the praise of a strict mother, older children tried to take care of their younger brother if he was her favorite. Close friendly communication of the youngest child with older brothers and sisters, as a rule, has a beneficial effect on his development.

Mitya grew up as a handsome, blond, inquisitive and very mischievous boy. From him, his sister Masha often got it, who looked after him. Sometimes, he even beat her with a mallet. Only his mother could force him to do his homework. Most of all, Mitya loved to read and play teacher, especially to punish negligent students. At the end of the game, as a rule, one of the sisters was kneeling in the corner.

Looking at Mitinka, Maria Dmitrievna began to dream of a great future for her “last child”. She even managed to send Mitya to the gymnasium two years ahead of schedule, along with Pasha. According to the memoirs of D. I. Mendeleev, “in order not to spoil myself, staying at home alone, they begged me to accept (to the gymnasium) together with my brother. But since it was allowed to take, and even then in exceptional cases, only from the age of 8 (and I was 7), they accepted me, but with the condition that I would certainly stay in the 1st grade for 2 years. I studied then, it seems, not badly, but due to my childhood I was left in the 1st grade for 2 years.

In fact, the mother simply forced things. She wanted her sons to finish high school at the same time, so that they could both be taken to Moscow to enter the university.

The most difficult, most dramatic period in the life of the mother of D. I. Mendeleev has come. For several years, she had to literally be torn between her family and the glass factory in order to feed her family. Sometimes she was very tired and sad thoughts overcame her: “My day begins at six o’clock in the morning by preparing dough for rolls and pies, then preparing food, and then I go to the kitchen table, then to the written one, and on the days of calculations by labels directly from cooking - to calculations ... My tears drip on books.

“I am no longer what I was, and I cannot be more useful to my family with the activity that provided them with all the ways of physical existence: vision and memory have betrayed me. With the best friends of my life - books - I parted, it seems, forever. I still wield a pen, but I wield it only in order to convey the feelings of the soul to a dear heart. Do not think, however, that I indulge in grief in my present position. On the contrary, with firm faith, I calmly bear my cross ... ".

Soon, Maria Dmitrievna received a precious gift from her daughter Catherine - glasses, and life began to improve again. “Thank you a thousand times for the glasses you sent; - she said in a letter in response, - with them I seemed to come to life for a conversation with my silent friends ... It would be hard for me to exist for some worries about the womb, and not have a free minute for my soul, mind and heart.

In 1844, the eldest son Ivan graduated from the gymnasium, and Maria Dmitrievna went with him to Omsk to her daughter Ekaterina. Finally, she saw her dear children and grandchildren. However, Mendeleeva did not stay long in the Kapustin family. Her heart was restless. Having arranged for Vanechka to serve her son-in-law Ya. S. Kapustin, Maria Dmitrievna was getting ready to go home. The daughter was even upset, thinking that her mother was dissatisfied with something.

In a letter to Katenka, Maria Dmitrievna explained her imminent departure as follows: “I repeat that I went to you with motherly love, spent time with you with love, and parted with you with the same love, and therefore all your suspicions and all assumptions that I I was dissatisfied with you, unfair ... My forebodings came true, my heart told me that a new test awaited me at home ... Our Apollinaria again resolutely wants to leave us and go to the monastery.

The middle daughter of Apollinaria (Polenka) was a talented artistically gifted person. When there was no hope for her marriage, she passionately indulged in religion and was about to leave for the Turin convent. From the letters of Maria Dmitrievna to the daughter of E. D. Kapustina, it is known that the abbess of this monastery often stayed in the Mendeleev’s house. Apollinaria began to deliberately “mortify her flesh”: to starve, to walk to matins in thirty-degree frosts, to stand for hours on her knees in a cold church. At night, according to the monastery charter, Polenka read sacred books. Perhaps the ambitious exalted girl dreamed of the glory of a martyr. She began to work for the poor, distributing her dowry, accumulated for her by her mother. Maria Mendeleeva, although she herself was religious, considered her daughter's behavior to be excessive and dangerous to her health. But even she, a strict mother, was no longer able to influence her daughter.

“Children have always been my wealth, my fame, my consolation,” wrote Maria Dmitrievna, “and if now Polenka, having given herself entirely to her new faith she has chosen, does not want to listen to my mother’s advice, then my mother’s love for her has not diminished from this. These two days my heart has suffered a lot. Polenka ruins her health with her way of life, but cold as a stone to her mother’s tears, she is sure that by doing everything opposite to her mother, she will be saved.

“What I am destined to experience, that I can no longer avoid. Be calm, happy and educate your children. Farewell, my dearest, may God's and maternal blessing be upon you ... Mother M. M., who loves you.

Caring for children, a consumptive husband, Apollinaria's unpredictable behavior required a lot of attention. Therefore, Maria Dmitrievna did not visit the factory in Aremzyany as often as she should have.

She had to constantly turn to her daughter Ekaterina and son-in-law Ya. S. Kapustin for help, who helped her in marketing products: “My circumstances are now completely different, and I can no longer boast of my activities. Until now, by the mercy of God, I can say that I have been eating the fruits of my previous labors, when the factory was doing well. But often I am completely without money, as now ...

The other day I sent letters to St. Iv. Popov to Semipalatinsk a convoy with utensils and should now receive from them more than 2,500 rubles, but will they send it soon ... They delivered 700 poods of white clay to the factory, and 600 poods are also being brought from Yekaterinburg on my order, and I am preparing firewood for the whole year, therefore, to For Christmas, I need to have about 2,000 rubles for expenses, but I do not hope to get it from Semipalatinsk soon and I ask and beg you to help me.

Finally, a joyful event happened in the family: in 1845, daughter Masha was married to the teacher of the Tobolsk gymnasium, M. L. Popov. In the same year, the Kapustins sent their grandson Senechka to Maria Dmitrievna to enter this gymnasium. “Senechka, Pasha and Mitya have already come from the gymnasium ...”, she wrote to her daughter on October 25, 1846.

Every year the plant brought less and less income. Maria Dmitrievna, by her own admission, "fought like a fish on ice", but without result. In the absence of constant master's supervision, even the most well-established system quickly falls apart.

On December 6, 1846, Maria Mendeleeva sent a desperate letter to her daughter Ekaterina and son-in-law Yakov Semyonovich Kapustin: “My dearest! I am unable to connect my thoughts to write to you about anything. In the most critical situation of the factory ... I have up to 60,000 in readiness for one drinking dish, and if I do not have supplies, then my debts will end in bankruptcy, and in my old age I will remain a dishonorable woman. PS. On Tuesday I did not write because my soul was torn to pieces. It was necessary to calculate all the workers and artisans for the holiday, but I could hardly borrow 350 rubles for terrible interest and, having added Ivan Pavlovich’s pension to them, I distributed everything, all the money, and was left myself with 25 rubles in banknotes and 400 rubles.

Thank God, this time everything was resolved safely. “My dear ones! After seven agonizing December days, I'm starting to breathe more freely." “Losing a good name scares me the most. I am not afraid of poverty, I am not ashamed to endure poverty in my old age, if I no longer have the strength to work, but I cannot be indifferent to undeserved contempt, I cannot be indifferent to undeserved reproaches from those whom I cared about. My factory children have shown me in recent months such affection and readiness to serve as I did not expect from them. In October they laid down a new workshop and oven, and worked for a month and a half, receiving only what was necessary for bread; and when by Nikolin's day I wrote that I would give them free to pay off or continue the action until Christmas, because I still don’t know if I will have a sale of dishes, then they all decided to work on credit, and continue the action, because both the oven and pots are good. All this moves me to tears.”

In the future, Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev wrote: “Growing up near the glass factory that my mother led, thereby supporting the children left in her arms, I took a closer look at the factory business from a young age and got used to understanding that it belongs to the number of people's breadwinners ... "

For Christmas, the Mendeleevs received gifts from the Kapustins. In a letter, Maria Dmitrievna thanked her children for them and was incredibly happy about the gifts from her son Ivan, bought with his first earned money: by Christmas. I have nothing to give you, but the example of the elder has a lot of effect on the younger brothers.

The year ended for the Mendeleev family with a happy event: daughter Maria gave birth to a son, Mikhail. “I congratulate you, my dearest children, on a new stranger in the world,” wrote Maria Dmitrievna, “and from the feeling of my heart I believe that you will all equally share and in absentia our common joy and love your nephew and peer, my dear grandson Vanechka ... I am two spent the night at Masha's. She does not feel bad and has begun to breastfeed herself ... "

“Oh, if you only knew and could feel, how I would like to press all of you to my heart and see you all happy... I remain the loving mother of M. Mendeleev.”

The new year 1847 turned out to be the most difficult for the Mendeleev family. In October, Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev died of consumption. “My father,” D. I. Mendeleev later wrote in his memoirs, “was not completely healthy for a long time, but then he felt satisfactory. Suddenly he calls his family, insistently, but calmly demanding that everyone say goodbye to him, because "now he will die." His mother began to calm him down, but he interrupted her, saying that there was no time, that he wanted to kiss everyone. Saying goodbye to everyone, he calmly turned to my brother Pavel: “Come on, Pashenka, let me take a puff of tobacco.” Dragged on and died ... No fear, no suffering, no rites, no tears.

Even dying, Ivan Pavlovich wanted to protect his wife from unnecessary worries. For Maria Dmitrievna, the death of her beloved husband was an irreparable loss.

“Today is the eighth day since I became an orphan ... My situation is difficult, but I humbly bow the knee of my heart before the omniscient Providence of the Most High and expect what the Lord will do with me ... My dear Olenka! My dear Katenka! You sympathize with our grief, and if you do not understand the feelings of the mother, then the grief of the sisters is close to your heart. Comfort them, help them, and pray that the Lord take pity on your poor mother and not long separate her from her faithful companion of 38 years of life ”(from letters to the Kapustin family).

After the death of Ivan Pavlovich, Maria Dmitrievna was left without a true friend. She had four children in her arms: two unmarried daughters: Polenka, sick with consumption, Lizanka, sickly, and two schoolboys. The older children lived far away, Masha still needed help herself. There was no one else to support and pity Maria Dmitrievna.

“Do not leave, good children, your orphan mother and teach me what to do so as not to lose my pension, where to apply” (October 20, 1847). In these difficult days, Maria Dmitrievna tried to ensure that the trouble rallied all her children, so that close family ties were maintained between them. In her letters, she asked older children, for the sake of respect for her, to write letters to their younger brothers and sisters: “My dear older daughters, comfort me with your special letters to Masha and Mikhail Loginovich (son-in-law), which I also ask Vanechka.”

In the future, the already famous scientist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev invited his widowed sister Ekaterina to live with her three sons, three daughters and a grandson.

Maria Dmitrievna procured a widow's pension, but it turned out that it was not possible to support her family with this money. She was forced to do the factory business with her last strength.

Like a cry of despair, her new letter to her daughter and son-in-law: “I beg and beg you not to leave my convoy and check in the carters' office. God grant that Ivan Sokolov brings you a good horse. Accepting it, if you bring it, please give him a ruble or blue. He is poor, and I delivered this work to him on the road to help him ... Only, for God's sake, help me by sending 250 rubles for the New Year, so as not to stop paying labels. Factory artisans in Guta work all December without money and are waiting for what they will receive by the New Year. And for November I calculated only half by Nikolin's day, and promised the rest after Christmas. Judge now that it is a pity for me to leave the educated by me, no longer violent and insolent workers, but thrifty peasants and grateful to me.

An amazing woman, the mother of Mendeleev, being in such a distressed situation, thought not only about her own children, but also about “factory children”. Knowing that she would soon part with them, she wanted to help them at least in parting.

Maria Dmitrievna was so in need of money that she even sent a catalog of her books, perhaps in the depths of her soul hoping that her son-in-law, seeing such wealth, would want to buy a library. But the daughter did not understand her subtle hint.

“In vain, dear Katenka,” she wrote to her, “you think that I should start selling a fundamental library, and consider it necessary to send you a catalog so that you, like children, know what my wealth consists of, on the security of which I could have money elsewhere. I only want to pay off my debts as soon as possible and sell the house, I am left without shelter, if only to throw off the yoke of penalties ... "

In the same letter, M. D. Mendeleeva wrote about Apollinaria: “Now Polenka’s illness has brought all my affairs into oblivion. I again forget in due time to dispose of and act, again I become a miserable woman and an unhappy mother ... I go upstairs to Polenka. She coughed a lot last night. Tears fall along with tears of heavy maternal grief. Katenka, (you) lost babies and you will believe me.

Three months after the death of Ivan Pavlovich, grief again befell the family: Polenka (Apollinaria) died of transient consumption. The words of Maria Dmitrievna are permeated with extraordinary pain: “My heart is torn to pieces, but I don’t even dare to cry and I’m still afraid for Lizanka ... My God! My God! Give me strength and strength to suffer and endure!!!

“I courageously endured the separation from my Ivan Pavlovich ... - she admitted in a letter, - But the untimely death of Polenka struck me” (January 15, 1848).

In the next letter, she wrote: “Due to my cowardice, I am still crying for Paul, but the tears will soon dry up. I have to stay awake in order to raise Pasha and Mitya. They still need maternal care and care. I would like to write more cheerfully, but I cannot strengthen my poor heart.

In the same year, 1848, a fire broke out at the plant, destroying warehouses with materials and finished products. A few days later, the second fire destroyed everything to the ground, freeing Maria Dmitrievna from all attachments to Tobolsk. By that time, his son Pavel graduated from high school and was sent to Omsk, under the care of the Kapustins, where, like his brother Ivan, he entered the service. Most likely, Maria Dmitrievna already realized that she would not be able to give a university education to both younger sons, with all her desire.

By the end of Mitya's gymnasium, Maria Dmitrievna sold her house and sold all her property, except for the library. She handed over the books to her daughters for safekeeping, one part to Masha, the other was sent to Kapustin in Omsk.

In the early summer of 1849, Mendeleev's mother, together with her daughter Lizanka and son Mitya, set off along the Moscow-Siberian Highway to Moscow. It seems that some supernatural forces strengthened the spirit of the mother and no one and nothing could prevent her from fulfilling her dream: to send her beloved son Mitinka to Moscow University. Neither the cholera raging over large territories of Russia, nor the crossing over the Irtysh, nor the incredibly difficult trip in post stagecoaches along the roads, which in some places were a kind of arable land cut by longitudinal furrows, could stop her. A distance of 30 miles was overcome in seven to eight hours.

Having overcome two thousand kilometers, Maria Dmitrievna arrived in Moscow in the fall with her children. Brother Vasily cordially received his sister and nephews. He made several attempts through his influential friends to arrange Dmitry at the university. When these attempts were unsuccessful, Vasily Korniliev suggested that his sister arrange a nephew in one of the Moscow offices. Mendeleev's mother did not even want to hear about the career of an official for Mitya - her faith in the genius of her son was so great.

In the winter of 1850, together with Liza and Mitya, she went to St. Petersburg. At first, she wanted to assign her son to St. Petersburg University, then to the Medical-Surgical Academy, but Dmitry did not pass the test, as he became ill during the autopsy.

Already desperate, Mendeleev's mother sought out a student friend of her late husband, mathematics professor D.S. Chizhov, and turned to him for help. He taught at the Main Pedagogical Institute, but admission to it was held every two years. It was in 1850 that there was no admission. Maria Dmitrievna went around all the instances, all her acquaintances, filed a petition with the Ministry of Education with a request to make an exception for her son and still got her way: an exception was made for Dmitry from the rules. On May 1, an order was signed to admit him to the exams. From the memoirs of D. I. Mendeleev: “At the Main Pedagogical Institute, Chizhov ... helped, and they did not accept him for a year.”

In August, Mendeleev passed the tests, but, perhaps, from previous unrest, not entirely successful: Russian - 4, physics - 3 1/2, geography - 3 1/2, history - 3 1/2, the Law of God - 3, French - 2, German - 2 1/2. However, no one dared to refuse to receive the son of Maria Mendeleeva. At the end of the same month, Dmitry became a student of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Pedagogical Institute. The mother achieved state support for her son, and Mitya gave a receipt to work as a teacher after graduating from the institute for eight years.

This long-awaited, passionately desired event suddenly removed terrible tension from Maria Mendeleeva. It was as if her maternal mission on earth had been completed and the divine spirit had left her body.

She quickly lost strength. The money brought from Tobolsk has run out. Only a small survivor's pension remained. Maria Dmitrievna, of course, could return to her brother in Moscow; undoubtedly, Vasily Korniliev would have accepted his sister and niece. But, taught by bitter experience with her son Ivan, Maria Mendeleeva chose to stay close to Mitya. Together with Lizanka, she rented a room in the attic in Rtelev Lane (now Chekhov Street). This house was next to the institute where Mitenka studied.

From the moment Dmitry entered the institute, Maria Dmitrievna lived only one month. Before her death, she wrote a farewell letter to the children and blessed Dmitry with an icon of the Mother of God, on which she wrote: “I bless you, Mitenka. The hope of my old age was based on you. I forgive your delusions and implore you to turn to God. Be kind, honor God, the Tsar, the Fatherland, and do not forget that you must answer for everything at the Court. Farewell, remember the mother who loved you more than anyone else. Marya Mendeleeva.

The last days of her life, Mendeleev's mother, realizing that she was leaving her son at such a young age without a mentor, had lengthy conversations with him, urging him to devote himself to science. This powerful psychological setting of a dying mother, which Dmitri Mendeleev idolized until the end of his life, turned out to be the force that helped him independently go from a weak student to the heights of the scientific Olympus.

Maria Dmitrievna died on September 20, 1850 at the age of 57, exactly one month after her son was enrolled in the institute. “Mitenka” was then 16 years old, and “good Lizanka” - 28. Later, the children recalled that their dear mother died almost alone: ​​“only Lizanka and Mitenka, still just a boy, were with her.”

The death of his mother was a great shock to Dmitry; he began to get sick often, the doctors suspected he had consumption. For this reason, he had to study in the first year for two years, since most of the time he lay in the institute's infirmary.

But, despite the illness, Dmitry independently took a training course in the infirmary. The future scientist amazed his classmates and professors with his incredible ability to work. Soon Mendeleev became one of the best students. He brilliantly passed his final exams. The gold medal awarded to him as the best student gave Mendeleev the right to stay in St. Petersburg at the institute to prepare for the master's degree exams.

Mother forever remained for Dmitri Mendeleev the highest ideal and role model.

With mother's milk, Dmitry Mendeleev absorbed the concepts of morality, nobility, love for neighbors and for the motherland.

His mother awakened in him an indefatigable thirst for knowledge.

His mother taught him perseverance in achieving his goals.

Thanks to his mother, her holy sacrificial love, he became the greatest Russian scientist of the 19th century.

His first major scientific work - "The study of aqueous solutions by specific gravity" - 53-year-old Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev dedicated his mother, writing:

“...Your last child of the seventeenth of those born by you, you raised to his feet, fed with your work after the death of the father, leading the factory business. You taught to love nature with its truth, science with its truth... the motherland with all its inseparable riches, gifts... most of all, work with all its sorrows and joys... You forced me to learn work and see it as the only support for everything, With these suggestions you took him out and trustingly gave him over to science, consciously feeling that this would be your last business. You, dying, inspired love, work and perseverance. Having received from you ... so much, even a small one, perhaps the last, I honor your memory.

In the future, the name of the mother will be mentioned in the works of the great scientist many times. At the end of the second initiation, Dmitri Mendeleev wrote: "I CONSIDER THE TESTAMENTS OF THE MOTHER SACRED."

The reverent memory of his mother, her testaments remained for Dmitri Mendeleev a guiding star for his entire life, a life that he devoted to science for the sake of the prosperity of Russia, as his mother dreamed.

He passed on his mother's precepts to his children: "Take care of your mother, take care of her," Mendeleev wrote to his son Vladimir. When the Periodic Table of Mendeleev was confirmed by a French scientist, Dmitry Ivanovich rejoiced: “Everything was justified. That's my name!" And he regretted only one thing: that his mother would never know about his triumph. “I love my country like a mother,” wrote Mendeleev, “and my science as a spirit that blesses and sanctifies all peoples.”

In the late 1880s, the scientist bought a place for himself at the Volkovo cemetery, next to his mother's grave.

In the winter of 1907, D. I. Mendeleev fell ill with lobar pneumonia. All the efforts of doctors did not give results. The scientist was not afraid of death, but he was not ready and did not want to die. He still had a lot of unfinished business. And then in his memory it surfaced how, as a child, his mother saved him from a fatal illness, how she read adventure books to him all day long, so as not to let his consciousness fade away. Seventy-year-old Dmitry Ivanovich asked his relatives to continuously read Jules Verne's novels to him.

“On Friday, January 19, on the last day of his life, the scientist was almost all the time in oblivion, breathing very heavily and suffering greatly when he came to. But he kept asking to be read aloud to him. Jules Verne's Journey to the North Pole was read to him that day. If they fell silent when he fell into oblivion, then, coming to his senses, he said: “Why don’t you read, I’m listening ...”

Jules Verne's adventures without motherly love turned out to be just words with no healing power. At 5:20 on January 20, 1907, Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev died. During his illness, he did not say anything about death and did not say goodbye to anyone.

The name of Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev is known all over the world. Monuments to the genius are installed in different cities of Russia. Cities, streets, educational institutions, industrial enterprises, ships and planes are named after him. A crater on the Moon, a volcano, an underwater ridge in the Arctic Ocean, glaciers, an asteroid discovered in 1976 bear his name.

And only for the name of the Brilliant Mother, who adorned mankind with her creation, there was no street, no plane, no ship, no glass factory, no school, no kindergarten, no maternity hospital.

Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev was buried on the Literary Mostki at the Volkovo Cemetery in St. Petersburg. Next to the scientist in the fence are members of his family: son, wife, daughter and granddaughter.

Away from the grave of the famous son, there is a modest tombstone on the grave of Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleeva, the Genius Mother of the great scientist. There are no flowers, no wreaths, no cross on it ...