Lomonosov M.V. On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people Full text of the pre-revolutionary publication
In 1761, the great Russian scientist, poet and philosopher Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711 – 65) wrote a note “On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people” intended for the empress. His focus is on the demographic problem. Spaces Russian Empire are huge, but they are inhabited by a disproportionately small number of people. How to fix the situation?
Among other things, the Russian enlightener criticizes his sworn enemies - clerics and religious obscurantists.
In particular, Lomonosov is outraged by the custom of tonsuring young widower priests as monks. As is known, in the Orthodox tradition there is no vow of celibacy for the white clergy, unlike the black clergy, that is, the monastic one. But it is precisely the reproductive potential of young people, who are still capable of giving the fatherland much-needed children, that haunts Lomonosov.
“It has become a custom that it is contrary to human nature (whether it is contrary to the laws laid down at the councils, I don’t remember) that widowed young priests and deacons are forcibly tonsured as monks, which gives rise to sin, and not to salvation, and a considerable increase in the growth of the people is suppressed. Ridiculous carelessness! It is not allowed to perform sacred functions after marrying a second marriage legally, honestly and blessedly, and in monasticism a fornicator, an adulterer, or even a homosexual is given the freedom to serve the liturgy and perform all sorts of secrets. Is it possible to think that a young person, living in monasticism, without any sorrow, being content with food and drinks, and in everything appearance healthy, strong and fat would not be subject to carnal lusts, which always intensify the more they are forbidden? For these reasons, it seems that young widowed priests and deacons should be allowed a second marriage and not take monastic vows before the age of fifty, or, having removed the rank of priesthood, should be allowed to serve in secular ranks. This also includes the tonsure of young people directly into monks and nuns, which, although in modern times has diminished compared to previous times, there are still many excesses, especially in Little Russia and at synodal schools. Looks, attire, manners, luxury and other actions everywhere show that monasticism in youth is nothing more than fornication and sodomy covered with a black robe, causing significant damage to the reproduction of the human race, without mentioning the infanticide that occurs when a crime is covered up by an atrocity. It seems to me that the hood should be banned for men under 50, and for women under 45.”
Lomonosov's homophobia in the presented fragment has a demographic justification: his complaint against homosexuals is that by entering into relationships with each other, they do not contribute to the reproduction of the Russian population. In addition, homophobia is used by the Russian scientist in his struggle with ideological opponents - the reactionary clergy, and thereby becomes part of his anti-clerical doctrine.
What is also important in Lomonosov’s homophobia is the absence of a strictly religious basis, such as, for example, the myth of Sodom and Gomorrah. For him, these are rather Orthodox monasteries, which, in his opinion, breed homosexuals and debauchees throughout Russia. Homophobia becomes a secular, quasi-scientific ideology in Lomonosov: it is noteworthy that the scientist comes to it through the study of demographic problems.
The argument of the Russian enlightener is curious: the vow of celibacy is contrary to nature and makes the monk a “sodomy.” This is how homophobia acquires its “naturalistic” justification: homosexuality does not lead to procreation, and, therefore, is evil. There is an obvious intersection here with the rigid heteronormativity of the Enlightenment with its rigid gender roles of man and woman.
Lomonosov’s rhetoric is noteworthy: monasticism of men of reproductive age is contrary to “human nature,” that is, that very “reasonable nature” that, according to the philosophy of the Enlightenment, lies at the basis of existence.
Lomonosov's heteronormativity has a practical and scientific character. Lomonosov is concerned about the fate of a particular state and the population growth of a particular country. However, here the Russian educator cannot do without heteronormative clichés and stigmatization of those who do not fit into them. Scourging “fornication and sodomy,” he points precisely to their “notable damage to the reproduction of the human race.”
Another thing is also important: Lomonosov’s homophobic accusations are directed against clerics. In fact, the Russian scientist argues that monasticism and the clergy, in general, are breeding grounds for homosexuality. The scientist recognizes how widespread homosexual practice is in large sections of Russian society: the clergy and the associated peasantry. And responsibility for the spread of this sodomy and sodomy, so destructive, from his point of view, for demography, lies precisely with the clergy.
This topicality of Lomonosov's note is its politicization. It is directed against Lomonosov's political and ideological enemies: clerical reactionaries. And the addressee of the note – the Russian Empress – makes it a political document.
It is likely that here we are dealing with one of the first manifestations of political homophobia in Russian history. In Lomonosov's note, homosexuality becomes a label that he attaches to his political opponent - the Orthodox clergy. Subsequently, Lomonosov’s student Ivan Barkov would do the same in his anti-clerical satires.
Lomonosov proposes to carry out a prohibitive policy towards clerics: in particular, to significantly raise the age for tonsure as monks and nuns. And he substantiates it, among other things, with the argument about the dominance of homosexuals in Orthodox monasteries.
The idea of monasticism and Christian celibacy as a demographic threat is very characteristic of the social thought of the Enlightenment with its anticlerical pathos. Lomonosov’s ideas are consonant with the thoughts of the French enlightenment philosopher Charles Montesquieu (1689 – 1755), who wrote in his novel “Persian Letters” (“Lettres persanes”) (1721) that the Catholic Church itself opposes the reproduction of the human race, as it instructs its priests celibacy.
The heroes of Montesquieu's novel are Persian diplomats stationed in France. In their correspondence with their compatriots, they report on the “oddities” of morals, customs, social order and the religion of the French - Catholicism, which introduces a vow of celibacy for the white clergy (celibacy):
“I find that their scholars obviously contradict themselves when they say that not only marriage is sacred, but also celibacy, which is its opposite; not to mention the fact that, based on fundamental principles and dogmas, the good is always the best.
The number of people professing celibacy is amazing. Fathers condemn their children to it from the cradle: now they enter into it from the age of fourteen.
This custom has already destroyed more people than diseases and the bloodiest wars. In every monastery there are eternal families who do not give birth to anyone, and who live at the expense of others. These monasteries are always open, like abysses that swallow future generations.”
As we see, Montesquieu writes about the same thing as Lomonosov, although in a more vivid, figurative manner: the institution of religious celibacy (celibacy) and monasticism, in general, is a danger and threat to humanity, since it does not lead to fertility. Montesquieu says that monasteries “absorb future generations.” Lomonosov writes that because of the monasteries, “a considerable increase in the number of people is being suppressed.”
Montesquieu’s reference to the same fundamental principle of the Enlightenment is interesting – “the good is always the best,” that is, the rationally understood order of being. His demography, like Lomonosov’s, has a rational heteronormative meaning.
Another great French educator, writer and philosopher Denis Diderot (1713 - 84) was also adamant in criticizing the institution of monasticism. His novel The Nun (La Religieuse) (1760) is a masterpiece of anti-clerical literature of the Enlightenment. In it, Diderot, like Lomonosov, proposes introducing a strict government policy towards monasteries:
“It seems to me that in a well-governed state, on the contrary, it should be difficult to join a monastery and easy to leave,” says the heroine of the novel, suffering from the fact that she was tonsured a nun at a young age against her will.
And here we come to a very important homophobic aspect presented in Lomonosov’s note - the question of the causes of homosexuality, or rather, the idea of homosexuality as a result of “distortion,” “mutilation,” “perversion” of sexual desires in a person due to monastic life. This idea brings Lomonosov's note closer to Diderot's novel.
The tonsure of young people of both sexes into the monastic order is, according to Lomonosov, a path to sin - “fornication and sodomy.” And precisely because sexual desires and carnal love are natural for young people. They cannot resist them. Lomonosov looks at the world realistically. “Looks, attire, courtesies, luxury and other actions” will still do their job, and young flesh will find satisfaction for itself: not with a woman, so with a man.
Force sexual desire is well understood by Lomonosov, and here his ideas about sexuality are similar to the picture of eternal coitus of everyone with everyone, which we find in the works of Ivan Barkov (1732-1768). Lomonosov, like Barkov, demands an outlet for these sexual desires, and prohibitions, according to him, cannot curb them: “Is it possible to think that a young person, tenacious in monasticism, without any sadness, content with food and drinks, and in everything healthy, strong and fat in appearance would not be subject to carnal lusts, which always intensify the more they are forbidden?
True, unlike his student-pornographer, Lomonosov, as a true educator, offers a much more moderate framework for the realization of this violent sexuality, namely: the institution of marriage. “Young widowed priests and deacons should be allowed a second marriage,” he calls. In his opinion, it is impossible to establish prohibitions on the sexual desires of young people, but they should be implemented within the framework of the heteronormative matrix, expressed in the institution of heterosexual marriage.
Lomonosov fears that the strength of sexual desire in young people will find a “wrong” homosexual outlet. In his opinion, monasticism in youth is a path to homosexuality precisely because of the hypersexuality of young people, of both sexes.
The idea of homosexuality as a “wrong” transformation of sexual desire is presented in Diderot’s novel “The Nun.”
It tells the story of a young girl, Suzanne Simonen, who was forcibly tonsured as a nun. In one of the monasteries, the abbess falls in love with her, who in every possible way seeks physical intimacy with her. Suzanne decides to tell the priest Father Morel about this.
The dialogue between Suzanne and Morel sets out important ideas that reveal the meaning of the demographic and anti-clerical homophobia of the Enlightenment, including Lomonosov. Here are their words:
“But can the liberties and caresses of one woman be dangerous for another?
Am I not the same as when I came here?
No response from Father Morel.
Wouldn't I continue to be myself? What is evil about loving yourself, telling yourself about it, proving it to yourself? It's so tender!
“That’s true,” said Father Morel, raising his eyes, which he had kept downcast during my conversation.
And is this common in monasteries? My poor abbess! What a state she has fallen into!
It's a sad state of affairs and I'm afraid she's no longer in control. She was not cut out for her rank; This is what happens sooner or later when the general inclination of nature is opposed: this constraint pushes it towards unbridled impulses, which are the stronger the more unreasonable; this is a kind of madness.
Is she mad?
Yes, and it will become even crazier.
And do you believe that such a fate awaits those who are in a position for which they are not designed?
Not at all; among them there are those who die first; there are those whose flexible character is ready to live like this for a long time; there are those who are supported for a while by their high hopes.
But what hope does the nun have?
Which? First of all, those to realize their desires.
What if there is no longer any hope?
Those that one day the doors will open; that people will abandon the strangeness of imprisoning young living beings in tombs, and that monasteries will be abolished; that the fire will burn the house; that the walls of the monastery will fall; that someone will save them."
Here we are faced with the idea of homosexuality as a violation of heteronormativity, as a contradiction of this “naturalness,” this general law of nature, as a perversion of desire. Moreover, this happens, according to Diderot, as a result of the “constraint” of natural desire within the framework of monastic life, that is, the limitation of heterosexual desire.
It turns out that a loving woman, not intended for life in a monastery, due to the constraint of her “natural” desires, becomes a lesbian.
Lomonosov writes about the same thing: “Monasticism in youth is nothing more than fornication and sodomy covered with a black robe.” Lomonosov agrees with Diderot that “unbridled desires” usually intensify in a person as they become “unfounded.” “The desires of lust,” in his words, “always intensify the more they are forbidden.”
In a word, for both enlighteners, homosexuality is a “perversion” of natural sexual attraction.
For Lomonosov, as for Diderot, monasteries are “tombs” for young people full of life and sexual desires.
Such radicalism is certainly alien to Lomonosov. His policy regarding monasteries, which, from his point of view, distort heteronormativity and make men homosexuals, is much more moderate. He only proposes to raise the age of entry into the monastery: “the hood should be banned for men under 50, and for women under 45.”
As an educator, Lomonosov “supervises and punishes.” No wonder his recipe sounds strict and clear: “must be banned.” Here Lomonosov is a staunch conservative. However, Lomonosov’s conservatism remains secular, “scientific” and anti-clerical.
It is likely that Lomonosov could have borrowed this logic of the “relationship” of sodomy and fertility from the German philosopher Christian Wolf (1679 – 1754), whose lectures he listened to while still a student at the University of Marburg. Wolf, being the most significant philosopher of Germany in the mid-18th century, like Lomonosov, was convinced that sexual desires push men towards sodomy (along with bestiality), distracting them from their main purpose: to marry for the sake of procreation. “Many would rather engage in intercourse of this kind in order to satisfy their carnal desires than to enter into marriage, due to the difficulties of the marital state,” 5
Unlike Diderot, Lomonosov does not call homosexual attraction “a kind of madness.” He does not call for sanctions against homosexuals. Rather, in his opinion, this must be done in relation to the monasteries that produce them.
Lomonosov's homophobia is much softer and more moderate. It does not have an aggressive or repressive character. And there were no general civil laws punishing sodomy in contemporary Russia, unlike France during the time of Diderot or Germany during the time of Wolf.
Lomonosov's homophobia already has political, sociological and demographic aspects. The phenomenon of demographic homophobia, which holds homosexuals responsible for the low birth rate in society, is still widespread among Russian conservatives.
We are talking about the absolutization of heterosexual acts aimed at procreation and their distribution to everyone. Consequently, homosexual acts, as well as any queer acts (under which the justice of that time classified masturbation, anal sex, etc.), are outside moral norms and outside the law. Although, we repeat, Lomonosov himself does not call for introducing punishment for homosexuality as such.
From Lomonosov comes the conservative line of attitude towards homosexuality in the Russian Enlightenment. The continuator of Lomonosov's anticlericalism, Ivan Barkov, forms another, libertarian line, which will try to justify male homosexuality and bisexuality as an integral part of sexual life.
Lomonosov sent this letter to I.I. Shuvalov on November 1, 1761. It was published several times, but not during the scientist’s lifetime. For the first time, excerpts of the letter were published in the “Journal of Ancient and Modern Literature” in 1819. This treatise led to confusion and horror among officials, as well as the reactionary Minister of Public Education and Spiritual Affairs A. N. Golitsyn, by whose order it was recognized “that the spread Lomonosov’s letter should be prohibited in public,” since it contains “thoughts that are reprehensible, unjust, contrary to the Orthodox Church and insulting the honor of our clergy.”
The next publication (also in abbreviated form) was published in 1842 - in the “scientific and literary magazine” Moskvityanin. It was published by the editor-in-chief and founder of the magazine, the famous Russian historian and publicist Mikhail Pogodin.
Only 110 years after it was written, having lost its relevance and significance, the letter was published in full in the St. Petersburg Historical Bulletin - “Russian Antiquity”. From a historical point of view, it is of particular importance, because it demonstrates the true state of affairs Russia XVIII V. It is symbolic to this day, because just like 250 years ago, the problem of “reproduction and preservation of the Russian people” remains unresolved.
We print Lomonosov’s letter while maintaining the integrity of the author’s spelling, since it would be a sin to change the characteristic features of Lomonosov’s letter.
MIKHAIL VASILIEVICH LOMONOSOV.
About the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people. 1761
Dear Sir Ivan Ivanovich.
While sorting through my writings, I found old notes of my thoughts, extending to increase the general benefit. After consideration, I decided for the benefit of reporting them more extensively and thoroughly to Your Excellency, as a true zealot about all the good of the dear fatherland in the hope that perhaps there will be something in them that will serve for the real improvement of the Russian world, which with your insight and zeal has been sorted out, located and can be brought to true fulfillment. All these thoughts, noticed separately at different times, can, it seems to me, be summarized under the following chapters:
- 1. On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people.
- 2. On the destruction of idleness.
- 3. On the correction of morals and more people enlightenment.
- 4. On the correction of agriculture.
- 5. On the correction and reproduction of crafts and arts.
- 6. About the best benefits of merchants.
- 7. About better state economy.
- 8. On the preservation of the art of war during long-term peace.
These very important chapters require deep reasoning, long-term art in government affairs for explanation, and precautionary force for putting them into action. So, M.G., excuse my insolence that, not having the necessary ability, I only touch upon a heavy burden out of zeal, which does not allow me to leave anything (even if only apparently) useful to society under wraps. I consider the beginning of this to be the most important thing: the preservation and proliferation of the Russian people, in which lies the majesty, power and wealth of the entire state, and not in vastness, futile without inhabitants. The divine work of both the merciful and humane monarch of our meek heart is a worthy task - to deliver her subjects from death, even if others were worthy according to the laws. This pardon is obvious and directly dependent on her highest maternal will and command. But there is a lot of murder and even suicide, belittling people, whom it is impossible to exterminate directly by decrees, without correcting or completely exterminating some customs and some others, under the name of ingrained laws.
It has become a custom in many Russian borders, and especially in villages, that young children who are incapable of marital duties are married to adult girls, and often the wife could, by her age, be the mother of her husband. This naturally controversial behavior is followed by bad circumstances: tearful adventures and destruction of the human race that are harmful to the growth of mankind. The first summers after marriage are barren, therefore, such a marriage is not a marriage and, moreover, is harmful to the reproduction of the people, since such an adult woman, being her equal, could give birth to several children to society. A boy, encouraged by a perky adult wife, by strengthening himself spoils himself ahead of time and will henceforth not be quite capable of childbearing in his time, and when he reaches manhood, the wife will soon leave those years in which she was more capable of childbearing. Although she, even in her early childhood, can become pregnant in an unauthorized manner, however, fearing disgrace and reproaches and beatings from her husband’s parents, she can easily resort to infanticide while still in her womb.
There are quite a few examples where, disdaining a small and stupid peasant, a wife gets involved with another and, in order to marry him, pits her husband against him or otherwise kills him, and after being exposed, she is put to death. So, through these disorders the unborn die, and the guilty and innocent perish.
The second inequality in marriage occurs when a man old age marries a very young girl, which, although not so dangerous, is nevertheless harmful to the growth of the people, and although the lack of unallowed love can be filled, this unfriendliness, suspicion, anxiety and litigation in the inheritance and great misadventures can be the cause. For this purpose, inequality of marriage, which is harmful to the growth and preservation of the people, should be prohibited and should be included within moderate limits.
In my opinion, the groom’s bride should not be older than only two years, and the groom can be 15 years older. This is because women age more quickly than men, and especially from frequent pregnancy. Women give birth barely beyond 45 years of age, and men are often capable of fertility up to 60 years of age.
It is most similar if the wife’s husband is older from 7 to 10 years. Although in the villages they show reasons that they marry small children for working women, it is all a wasteland, because if someone has a small family, but has a lot of arable land or livestock, then hire workers, accept third- or half-term workers, or sell the excess to someone else.
An unequal marriage is much like a forced one, for where there is no love, fertility is unreliable. Disagreements, disputes and fights harm the conceived fetus and are often the cause of untimely and immature birth. For this purpose, the wedding priests must firmly confirm that, having heard somewhere about an involuntary combination, they do not allow it and do not marry for fear of being deprived of their rank; they should not only ask the bride and groom for appearances when they have already been brought to the church for the wedding, but somewhat before.
Although it is not allowed in our law to suddenly have more than one wife, a fourth after the third death is not ordered in our laws, except that a certain Armenopul, a judge of Thessalonica, ordered privately, relying, as I hope, on the words of Nazianzinov: “The first marriage is the law, the second is forgiveness, the third is iniquity.” But this was not approved by any conciliar laws, because he said this as an orator, as a preacher, and not as a legislator, and, despite the words of this great saint, the holy church blesses the third marriage, but the fourth prohibition came to us from Thessaloniki, and not from ecumenical councils or royal and national legislations.
This custom greatly hinders the growth of the people. I have seen many widowers from a third wife who were about 30 years old, and my father was widowed for the third time, although he was 50 years old, but still in full vigor and could still marry a fourth.
It seems to me that it would not be contrary to the laws if, for the multiplication of the people and to avoid unauthorized carnal mixtures, and therefore unhappy adventures, a fourth, and, if necessary, a fifth marriage were allowed, following the example of other Christian nations.
It is true that sometimes it happens, not without doubt, whether everything happened naturally when someone becomes a widow for the third time and, moreover, in a few years, and whether there was some hidden crime? For this, a person demanding a fourth or fifth marriage must present as witnesses neighbors or, even better, relatives from his first marriages, that in these his actions were not malicious and shameless, and who will show probable signs of infidelity or ferocity, and especially in two or in all three marriages, those persons should not be allowed a fourth marriage.
It has become a custom that it is contrary to human nature (whether it is contrary to the laws laid down at the councils, I don’t remember) that widowed young priests and deacons are forcibly tonsured as monks, which gives rise to sin, and not to salvation, and a considerable increase in the growth of the people is suppressed. Ridiculous carelessness! It is not allowed to perform sacred functions after marrying a second marriage legally, honestly and blessedly, and in monasticism a fornicator, an adulterer, or even a homosexual is given the freedom to serve the liturgy and perform all sorts of secrets.
Is it possible to think that a young person, living in monasticism without any sorrow, being content with food and drinks and in all appearance healthy, strong and fat, would not be subject to carnal desires, which always intensify the more firmly they are forbidden?
For these reasons, it seems that young widowed priests and deacons should be allowed a second marriage and not take monastic vows before the age of fifty, or, having removed the rank of priesthood, should be allowed to hold secular ranks. This also includes the tonsure of young people directly into monks and nuns, which, although in modern times has diminished compared to the past, there are still many excesses, especially in Little Russia and at synodal schools. Looks, attire, manners, luxury and other actions everywhere show that monasticism in youth is nothing more than fornication and sodomy covered with a black robe, causing significant damage to the reproduction of the human race, without mentioning the infanticide that occurs when a crime is covered up by an atrocity. It seems to me that the hood should be banned for men under 50, and for women under 45.
The above related more to the abundant fertility of those giving birth; The following must be done especially before the preservation of those born. Although the prohibition of unequal and forced marriage, the permission of the fourth and fifth marriage, the permission to marry widowed priests and deacons and the non-permission to accept the monastic order until the indicated years can undoubtedly result in a significant increase in the people and there will not be so many illegitimate children, therefore, less child murder, however, according to different for reasons and due to the weakness of the human constitution, it is impossible for a woman burdened with unauthorized voluptuousness or violence, not wanting to be dishonored, to look for ways to hide her lawlessness and misfortune, which is why sometimes in despair mothers kill their children.
To avoid such a terrible crime and to preserve the lives of innocent babies, it would be necessary to establish special almshouses for the undisturbed reception of shameful children, where almshouse old women could look after them instead of mothers or grandmothers; but about this especially, in a letter about the correction and expansion of crafts and arts.
This is followed by infantile illnesses, debilitating and plunging the beginning human life into the jaws of death, of which the first and most severe torment is birth itself. The baby suffers no less than the mother, and the only difference in their languor is that the mother remembers it, but the baby does not remember it. How great it is, the prophet David expresses, for, although he depicts the terrible enemies of his sorrows, he says: “There are diseases like those who give birth” (that is, women). Passing a painful path into a regrettable and vain world, since often a gentle person undergoes great damage, and especially in the head, in that at his very birth he is deprived of barely begun life and the spirit that was first drawn in last gives up either several hours or days only with real death fights. This is the first suffering, which often damages the health of those born alive for the rest of their lives.
This cannot be prevented in any other way, or at least somewhat alleviated, except by the art of midwives and the caution of pregnant women. Then comes tooth decay, which is often fatal for infants, especially when it brings falling sickness with it. Also hernias, smallpox, tabes, worms in the stomach and other childhood causes of death, all require knowledge of how to treat tender body diseases.
To diminish this great evil, I advise you to do the following:
1) Choose good books about the art of midwifery and, taking the best one as a basis, compose an instruction in Russian or, having composed it in another, translate it into Russian, to which it is necessary to add the good techniques of Russian skilled midwives; For this purpose, having convened elected officials who have long-term knowledge of the matter, ask each one in particular and everyone in general, and what will be accepted for good, enter it into this book.
2) To cure other childhood diseases, based on the great physician Hoffmann, who, after 60 years of practicing as a doctor, at the end of his life wrote an instruction on the cure of infant diseases, according to which I twice saved my daughter from death, and adding the best from others, to combine with the above-mentioned book about the art of midwifery; Moreover, we must not forget that our grandmothers and doctors generally use it to good effect.
3) In both of these combined arts in one book, it is observed that methods and medicines for the most part are not difficult to find everywhere in Russia, because we have so few pharmacies that not only in every city, but even in the famous great cities, there are still no pharmacies, which should have been taken care of long ago; but this will be discussed in particular.
4) Having printed this book in sufficient quantities, sell it throughout the state to all churches, so that priests and literate people, by reading, could know themselves and use instructions from others.
According to the calculation of the dead by parishes, carried out in Paris, comparing their years, almost as many infants die in the first three years as in the others, up to a hundred.
So, let’s assume that there are 12 million men in Russia, of which one million consists of such a marriage that children will be born, generally speaking, one every two years. Therefore, for each year there will be half a million births, of which half die in three years, or even more due to local negligence, so that for each year there will be a death toll for one hundred thousand babies no more than three years old. Isn’t it worth our labor and care so that even a tenth, that is, 10 thousand, can be convenient ways keep in life?
Hitherto about natural circumstances that are harmful to babies; It remains to mention the damage caused by superstition and gross stubbornness. Priests, not only rural ones, but also city ones, baptize babies in winter in the coldest water, sometimes with ice, pointing to the prescription in the missal that the water should be natural without any admixture, and they impute heat for mixed matter, and do not think that in the summer They themselves baptize with warm water, which in their opinion is mixed. So, they contradict themselves, and especially due to their thoughtlessness they do not know that in the very cold water There is still a lot of warmth.
From freezing into ice, water absorbs a cold of up to 130 degrees, and even here you can consider it hot, since freezing mercury has an incomparably greater distance from this degree than water from boiling water to freezing.
However, there is no need for ignorant priests to interpret physics; it is enough to force the authorities to always baptize with summer water, which is considered to be equal in warmth, because cold water is certainly harmful to a baby who has recently left the warm mother’s womb, especially one who has suffered a lot at birth. One immersion in moderate water is not without burden for the baby, when phlegm flows into the eyes, into the ears, into the nostrils, and sometimes into the mouth (and when the mouth and nostrils are closed by the priest with his hand, then the breathing that the baby recently received is stopped). When cold water with ice covers the limbs, then signs of epilepsy are often visible, and although he will get rid of the font alive, however, in subsequent illnesses, which every baby must overcome afterward, and especially when the first teeth come out, this deadly disease will most likely recur.
I consider such stubborn priests, who want to forcibly baptize with cold water, to be executioners, because after their homeland and christening they want a funeral soon for their own gain. How many such unlucky parents are there, who gave birth to children up to 10 and 15, but not a single one is left alive?
The disastrous infant beginning of life is followed by adventures that attack human health in the rest of this course. And, firstly, intemperance and imprudence with established customs, especially in Russia, which have taken root and have the appearance of a certain holiness. More than other times, Maslenitsa and St. a week a great crowd of people just by the variable use of drink and food.
It can be easily reasoned that, in preparation for abstinence during Lent, many people throughout Russia are so busy that there is no time left to fast. The dead in the taverns, in the streets and on the roads, and the frequent funerals prove this clearly.
Breaking the fast is the same. And there is no reason to be surprised. In addition to intemperance in drinking and eating on holy days, many try to Lent to be content with carnal mixing, lawfully and unlawfully, and so to oneself Happy Monday They are exhausted and cannot restore their health by any means, eating coarse lean foods, which are painful even for a healthy stomach.
Moreover, the beginning of spring soon follows, when all the bad things accumulated from people and other animals, which were locked up from frost all winter, are suddenly released and fill the air, mixed with water and us with sputum and scurvy fish in the stomach, in the lungs, in blood, into the nerves and into the entire structure of the vital members human body pour in, give birth to diseases in the healthy, multiply them in the sick and accelerate death in those who could still live longer.
After this, the bright resurrection of Christ, universal Christian joy, approaches; Then, although the Passion of the Lord is read almost incessantly and repeated many times, our thoughts are already on St. week. Some people imagine pleasant and light meals, others think whether their clothes will be in time for the holiday, others imagine how they will have fun with relatives and friends, others wait to see if supplies will arrive from the village, others prepare picturesque eggs and undoubtedly look forward to the opportunity to kiss beauties or nice date. Finally, Matins began at midnight and mass was sung until daylight. Christ is Risen! only in the ears and on the tongue, but what place does it have in the heart, where even the smallest wells are filled with worldly desires?
Like unleashed dogs, like accumulated water from an open dam, like whirlwinds bursting from a cloud, they tear, break, knock down, refute, torment. There are broken parts of various meats scattered there, broken dishes, spilled drinks are flowing, there lie unconscious people weighed down by gluttony and drunkenness, there lie naked and tired of fornication recent strict fasters. O true Christian fasting and celebration! Is it not such people that God is indignant with in the prophet: “My soul hates your holidays, and your censer is an abomination to me!”
Meanwhile, the poor stomach, having become accustomed over time to foods of little nutrition, is suddenly forced to accept fat and strong food into the contracted and weakened passages and, not having the required content of vital juices, it sends uncooked poisons through the veins, they spiral, the flow of blood is stopped, and the soul is in The heavenly doors that were then opened fly straight out of the tightness of the body. To be sure of this, you can consult church notes: about what time in the whole year the priests more honey does it come to kutya?
It is an indisputable fact that the unequal course of life and the abruptly alternating nutrition of the body is not only harmful to a person, but also deadly, so that the above-mentioned strict fasters, moreover, zealous and zealous lovers of holidays, can be considered suicides.
It is true that if someone at Maslenitsa prepares for fasting by living a moderate life, during fasting he does not exhaust himself unnecessarily and fasts more with his spirit than with his belly, for St. week rejoices at spending Great Lent in true virtues, in works useful to society and dear to God, and not about the fact that he lived to see the resolution of everything, he, of course, will feel fewer attacks from unhealthy times, and especially when labor sets the blood in motion and , in a word, contains itself , although sometimes lean, sometimes fast food, but equally moderate, without steep jumps and hillocks.
But here, in the north, this is a fat time at the ends, and in the middle the dry time is the most idle part of the year, when the peasants do not have any big work and only eat the sown, reaped, threshed and ground fruits of the field; merchants, due to damaged roads and muddy roads, have almost no way to travel from city to city with goods; no ships to sail and sea people contented movement; military people are on campaigns in winter quarters, and at home, either because of the frost or because of the slush, they cannot be comfortable for exercise. So, the majority of the people must remain in idleness, which during fasting and breaking the fast gives rise to unbridled luxury, and during fasting, combined with last year’s bad food and unhealthy air, spoils health and shortens life.
Many will say: “Yes, people live! Our fathers and great-grandfathers lived for many centuries!” True, the Lapps also live, feeding almost exclusively on fish, but look at how large they are in body and how populous they are, and compare them with the Samoyeds living in the same climate, who eat mostly meat. The first ones are small in stature, sparsely populated, so that at 700 versts in length, and 300 Lapps in width, it is only small that in large military taxes from all over the land, two soldiers per soul are hired from our people, then that of them is very rare, so that someone is at least fit to be a soldier.
Samoyeds, on the contrary, are quite tall, broad-shouldered and strong, and in such numbers that if internecine frequent bloody battles did not happen between many of their princelings, then the noble part of the eastern-northern coast would have been populated by them.
Look what those Russian regions more populous, where there is more livestock, then in many places where livestock is scarce, and meat-eaters for the most part feed on fish or empty cabbage soup with bread. If our Maslenitsa had been in the month of May, then Lent would have been in full spring and early summer, but St. a week around Peter's Day, then, in addition to new earthly fruits and fresh fish and well-dissolved air,
1st) the movement of the body would contribute to the preservation of health in peasants through arable work, in merchants through long journeys by land and sea, in the military through exercise and campaigns;
2nd) for the sake of correcting such necessary work, there would be less idleness, the mother of intemperance, less guests and feasts, less drunkenness, unequal living and intermittent nutrition, which undermine human health, and moreover, even if someone got drunk, he would not freeze to death when returning home. road, as happens on Maslenitsa, and would not have fallen through the ice, as happens on St. week.
I turn to you, great teachers and organizers of fasts and holidays, and with all reverence I ask your holiness: what did you think about us at that time when St. Have you started Lent at this time? It seems to me that you, in your holiness, meekness, patience and sincerity, will give a merciful answer and not like St. Andrew’s archpriest Yakov did, you won’t elect obscene language in the church, or like him with the sea captain Yankov on Bright Sunday at the cross for not kissing hands, do not hit the chest with your fist. You will say: “With fasts and holidays, we lived in Greece and in the Promised Land. It was then established to maintain the Holy Pentecost when, with the full radiance of the spring sun, the rich bowels of the earth open up, sprout young greenery filled with healthy juices and renew the air with fragrant perfumes; The early fruits ripen, serving as food, cooling and medicine; Our singing for the praise of God was matched by murmuring streams, rustling leaves and chanting sweet-voiced birds.
And about your midnight sides, we reasoned that not only there is not and will not be a Christian law, but below a single verbal inhabitant for the sake of the great cold. Don't complain about us! How would we order you to eat dates and figs and drink good grape wine according to krasoula, which you will not have? Arrange, like reasonable people, according to your climate, use the best time for fasting, or in bad times, use moderately healthy foods. You have a clergy who has equal power from Christ to bind and decide. For such an important matter, an ecumenical council can be formed in Russia: preserving the lives of just a great many people is worth it.
And besides, through teaching, instill in everyone the idea that it is more pleasing to God when we have a clear conscience in our hearts than in the stomach of scurvy fish, that fasts were established not for suicide with unhealthy foods, but for abstaining from excess, that a deceiver, a robber, an unjust, a bribe-taker , a thief and other images of a neighbor, a destroyer will not find forgiveness, even if instead of ordinary Lenten food for seven weeks he ate wood chips, brick, sponge, clay and coal and most of that time stood on his head instead of prostrations.
Pure repentance is a good life, inclining God to mercy, to generosity and to our love. Keep the commandments given by Christ, on which the entire law and prophets hang: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart (that is, not with your guts) and your neighbor as yourself (that is, with your conscience, not with your tongue).”
The obstacles to correcting this deficiency are terrible, but no more dangerous than forcing them to shave their beards, wear German dress, communicate politely with non-believers, force sailors to eat meat during summer fasts, destroy the boyars, patriarchate and archers and in their place establish the Governing Senate, the Holy Synod, new regular army, move the capital to an empty place and New Year another month! The Russian people are flexible!
In addition to this, a great many people fall into various other diseases, for the cure of which there are still very few decent institutions, as mentioned above, and only simple, illiterate men and women treat at random, often combining natural methods, as far as they understand, with with fortune telling and whispering, and thus not only do not give any power to their medicines, but also strengthen superstition in people, frighten the sick with sad looks and multiply the disease, bringing them closer to death.
True, there are many of them who actually know how to treat some diseases, especially external ones, such as farriers and chiropractors, so that sometimes even scientific surgeons are superior in some cases, but it is better to establish according to the rules, medical science components. In addition, throughout the cities, a sufficient number of doctors, healers and pharmacies are required, satisfied with medicines, at least decent for our climate, which is not even a hundredth part, but the Russian army is very poorly equipped with doctors, so the doctors do not have time to bandage and the wounded, not only to examine everyone, ask about the circumstances, give medicine and soothe the suffering. From such disdain, many who would come to life die.
This deficiency cannot be filled in anything faster than to send a sufficient number of Russian students to foreign universities to study doctorate and to give, among other privileges, the power to produce worthy ones as doctors; 2nd (Point 1 is not in the manuscript). The medical office must firmly confirm that both in pharmacies and with doctors there are a sufficient number of Russian students, whom they would at a certain time teach their art and represent to the Senate.
It’s shameful and annoying to hear that students of the Russian people, having been in pharmacies for ten or more years, do not know how to prepare almost any medicines, but for what? Because pharmacists still keep German students, and Russians, with yoke, with sieve and with coal, live to old age and die with students, but the whole state cannot be filled with Germans. Moreover, insufficient knowledge of the language, differences in faith, dissimilar morals and expensive wages are many obstacles.
Deaths from disease are followed by violent, natural and random circumstances as the reasons for the deprivation of human life, i.e. pestilence, fires, drownings, frosts. Although plagues on people happen for the most part in the southern borders of the local state, all sorts of methods must be used against it. These consist in the destruction of what has already begun or in the aversion of what is coming.
The first requires well-known means used against such misfortune, and for this, the best should be selected from among the authors, a book should be written for the Faculty of Medicine and, after printing, it should be sold throughout the state.
For the second, it is necessary to collect signs from previous examples, of which the main one is an eclipse of the sun, which almost always soon causes death to livestock, and then to people.
In our enlightened centuries, people who turn to astronomers in the great light know about this and can be careful not to let livestock leave the house and not give grass harvested that day: so in other states they are careful two or three days after and they themselves do not have any fruits at that time they take it off and do not consume it, saying that during a solar eclipse poisonous dew falls.
The main reason for being seems, in my opinion, that during an eclipse the sun is covered by the moon, the same body as our earth, the electrical force that the sun pours out on all plants all day long is abruptly stopped, which can be seen on the grasses sleeping at night and also those suffering during a solar eclipse.
Time will teach how much electric force can act in the reasoning of the epidemic. Eclipses are not known throughout the state, and for this it is necessary to publish them in advance and to order them by decrees, following the example, as is usual in other states.
To get rid of fiery death, precautions are taken to quench frequent and great fires, which will be discussed at length in the letter on better state economy. Drownings are twofold: from flooding and from careless insolence, especially drunkenness.
The first can be easily averted by prohibiting that there should be no dwellings in low places near great rivers, especially exposed to spring water. This is done out of sheer laziness, so that water, and hay, and all kinds of convenience from water are close, but often in high places those living in the spring see, being safe as cattle, and people, and entire houses, impregnable ice carries in the despair of any salvation .
The second flooding cannot be averted by anything without diminishing a lot of feasting and drunkenness, for which people dare to cross rivers in stormy weather, overloading ships with many, or cross ice in the fall and spring, when it is very unreliable and dangerous. In the chapter on the destruction of idleness, methods will be proposed, as well as for eliminating the freezing of many in winter.
Considerable damage is caused to the people by murders, which occur in fights and by robbers. Harmful fights occur between neighbors, and especially between landowners, who cannot be extinguished by anything other than land surveying. Although detectives are sent to the robbers, there is almost no hope of removing this evil or even significantly reducing it. The most thorough and powerful methods are required for this. The next one seems to me more reliable, more thrifty and more glorious to the most merciful monarch and, moreover, more kind, because he will have his effect by shedding less human blood.
Robbers without shelter in cities and near villages cannot stay for long and use their villainy for a long time. They stay near villages, and usually often visit cities to sell looted belongings. So, when these places are made narrow and cramped for them, they cannot hide for long; there will be no need to send teams far away and fight bloody battles with many, when you can have the opportunity to go through one by one and catch them often.
The long-awaited and long-term peace within our fatherland, one hundred and fifty years later, at which time after the ruin of the Poles there was no need to defend ourselves from enemies with walls, gave our negligence the reason to have little concern for the city fences, and therefore most of the small towns and towns and many provincial and provincial cities not only have stone walls, or even reliable ramparts and ditches, but also do not have wooden gardens or tyns, which I see, not without regret, from the answers sent to geographical questions to the Academy of Sciences from all cities by decree of the Governing Senate, in my opinion.
In addition to the fact that passing foreigners, not without contempt, look at our disorderly cities, or, better said, almost at the ruins, robbers use them as their refuge and can also be protected from worthy punishment in the city or, even better, than in the countryside, since the city is larger and on all sides, in every place, the gates are constantly open day and night to thieves and good people. When would the all-merciful deign to command all Russian cities, whose fences were collapsing or did not exist, to strengthen, although not stone walls, but only with a rampart and a ditch and a high front garden and not in many places leave gates with strong locks and with reliable petty-bourgeois guards, where there are no garrisons, so that the rows of stores were inside the fence, then it would be possible for thieves to transport robbed things into the city for sale it was very difficult and it was incomparably easier to use everything for inspection precautions than in a place open on all sides; and the robber may be more likely to be noticed at the gate, who, without selling the robbed things, will not receive any gain.
In addition, in each fenced city, establish permanent overnight accommodations for passers-by and travelers with written permission and with a sign, and order that every owner announce in the town hall every day who was staying overnight with him and for how long, and accept other townsfolk. Visitors and passers-by were not allowed into the house, for fear of punishment, except for their relatives, well-known in the city.
In all volosts, churchyards and villages, publish that if a peasant or two or more catch a robber, bring him to the city or another safe place and prove him with reliable witnesses and there will be no dispute about it, then give the drivers 10 rubles for each head. from the bourgeois treasury and for the main villainous leaders, for the ataman, esaul, also for the capture and prosecution of the one who runs the thieves' dens, 30 rubles each.
Although this seems to be enough where the cities are not very far away, there are many places in Russia that are remote, 500 miles or more without cities, direct refuges for robbers and all sorts of fugitives and people without passports; An example is the wooded area near the Vetluga River, which, stretching for 700 miles from the top to the mouth, does not have a single city with it. A great many barge haulers take refuge there from the Volga in winter, of which not small part robbers. The peasants support them all winter for half a man, and if he works, they feed him without pay, without asking for his passport. Cities should be founded and established in such places, giving noble villages civil rights establish town halls and voivodeships and protect them from robbers with reliable fortifications and precautions, as shown above.
This will serve not only for the general security and preservation of the Russian people, but also for the special glory of our most merciful autocrat, as the restorer of old ones and the builder of many new Russian cities.
Stopping talking about the loss of the Russian people through disease, misfortune and murder, we must mention the living dead. People are leaving the borderlands for foreign states, and especially for Poland, and thus the Russian crown is deprived of its subjects. It is true that having placed precautions at the Lithuanian border, however, it is impossible to completely close the great well by force: it is better to act with meekness. Escapes occur more from landowners' burdens on peasants and from soldiers' conscription. So, it seems to me that it is better to relieve the residents bordering Poland with taxes and remove the soldiers’ kits, placing them throughout the state. To create a split, a lot of Russian people are leaving for Vetka: can’t the fugitives there be returned given the current military situation? And henceforth, ways can be used that will present themselves for the correction of morals and for greater enlightenment of the people.
The place of fugitives abroad can be conveniently filled by accepting foreigners, if decent measures are taken to achieve this. The current situation in Europe is unhappy war time forces not only single people, but also entire ruined families to leave their fatherland and look for places far from military violence. The vast domain of our great monarch is able to accommodate entire nations in its safe bosom and satisfy all sorts of needs, which only require feasible labor from people to produce their useful product. I can’t imagine the conditions by which foreigners can be attracted to settle in Russia, not knowing the rather allied and hostile circumstances between the warring and peaceful parties.
I would like to compose an approximate account of how many of these 13 methods (and there are even more) would result in the preservation and increase of the subjects of Her Imperial Majesty. However, this requires many circumstances and a lot of time to be informed; For this reason, with just one guess I can reach a few that for each year the increase in the Russian people can increase more than the previous one up to half a million souls, and from revision to revision in 20 years - up to 10 million. In addition, I hope that these methods will not be burdensome to the people, but will serve to the safety and peace of the people.
Concluding this, I hope that Your Excellency will like something from my public-friendly opinions, and I ask for your continued health and in all the pleasure of the Most High builder and ruler of all peoples and languages, who brought you into existence on this day and infused into you the blood of the son of the fatherland to the production of useful works, and even more so for the patronage of sciences and arts, for which I, as well as for you, are zealous with all sincerity, and remain with due high reverence.
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Dear Sir, Ivan Ivanovich! Excuse my insolence that, not having the necessary ability, I only touch upon a heavy burden out of zeal, which does not allow me to leave anything (even if only apparently) useful to society under wraps. I consider the beginning of this to be the most important thing: the preservation and proliferation of the Russian people, in which lies the majesty, power and wealth of the entire state, and not in vastness, futile without inhabitants. The divine work of our merciful and philanthropic monarch of a meek heart is a worthy task - to deliver her subjects from death, even if others were worthy according to the laws [of it]. This pardon is obvious and directly dependent on her maternal will and command. But there is a lot of murder and even suicide, belittling people, whom it is impossible to exterminate directly by decrees, without correcting or completely exterminating some customs and some others, under the name of ingrained laws.
1. It has become a custom in many Russian borders, and especially in villages, that young children, incapable of marriage, are married to adult girls, and often the wife could, by her age, be the mother of her husband. This naturally controversial behavior is followed by bad circumstances: tearful adventures and destruction of the human race that are harmful to the growth of mankind. The first summers after marriage are barren, therefore, such a marriage is not a marriage, and moreover, it is harmful to the reproduction of the people, since such an adult woman, being equal, could give birth to several children to society. ⟨ ⟩
2. Much like an unequal marriage is something weak, for where there is no love, fertility is unreliable. Disagreements, disputes and fights harm the conceived fetus and are often the cause of untimely and immature birth. For this purpose, the officiating priests must firmly confirm that, having heard somewhere about an involuntary combination, they do not allow it and do not perform the wedding for fear of being deprived of the rank. The bride and groom would not then be asked just for show when they had already been brought to the church for the wedding, but somewhat earlier. ⟨ ⟩
4. It has become a custom that it is contrary to human nature (whether it is contrary to the laws laid down at councils, I don’t remember) that widowed young priests and deacons are forcibly tonsured as monks, which gives rise to sin, and not to salvation, and a considerable branch of the growth of the people is suppressed . Ridiculous carelessness! It is not allowed to perform sacred functions after marrying a second marriage legally, honestly and blessedly, and in monasticism a fornicator, an adulterer, or even a homosexual is given the freedom to serve the liturgy and perform all sorts of secrets. ⟨…⟩
7. Hitherto about natural circumstances harmful to babies; It remains to mention the damage caused by superstition and gross stubbornness. Priests, not only rural ones, but also city ones, baptize babies in winter in the coldest water, sometimes with ice, pointing to the prescription in the missal that the water should be natural without any admixture, and they impute heat for mixed matter, and do not think that in the summer They themselves baptize with warm water, which in their opinion is mixed. So, they will contradict themselves; and especially due to their thoughtlessness they do not know that even in the coldest water there is still a lot of warmth. ⟨…⟩
8. The disastrous beginning of life in infancy is followed by adventures that attack human health in the rest of this course. And, firstly, intemperance and imprudence with established customs, especially in Russia, which have taken root and have the appearance of a certain holiness. More than other times, Shrovetide and Holy Week devour a great multitude of people just by their variable consumption of food and drink. It can be easily reasoned that, in preparation for abstinence during Lent, many people throughout Russia are so busy that there is no time left to fast. The dead in the taverns, in the streets and on the roads, and the frequent funerals prove this clearly. Breaking the fast is the same. And there is no reason to be surprised: in addition to intemperance on the days of the spell, many try to be content with carnal mixing, legally and unlawfully, during the whole of Lent, and so exhaust themselves until Holy Monday that they cannot restore their health in any way by consuming coarse fasting foods. foods that are painful for a healthy stomach. ⟨…⟩
9. In addition to this, a great many people fall into various other diseases, for the cure of which there are still very few decent institutions, as mentioned above, and only simple, illiterate men and women treat them at random, often combining natural methods, as far as they understand, with with fortune telling and whispering, and thus not only do not give any power to their medicines, but also strengthen superstition in people, frighten the sick with sad looks and multiply the disease, bringing them closer to death. True, there are many of them who actually know how to treat some diseases, especially external ones, such as farriers and chiropractors, so that sometimes they even surpass learned surgeons in some cases, but it is better to establish [treatment] according to the rules that constitute medical science. In addition, in all cities, a sufficient number of doctors, healers and pharmacies are required, satisfied with medicines, even if only decent for our climate - which is not only not a hundredth part, but the Russian army is very dissatisfied with the supply of doctors, so that the doctors do not have time to bandage and the wounded, not only to examine everyone, question them in detail, give medicine and soothe the suffering. ⟨…⟩
November 1st, 1761
M. V. Lomonosov “Selected philosophical works” // Gospolitizdat, Moscow, 1950, pp. 598−614.
Lomonosov M.V. About the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people. [Letter to I.I. Shuvalov dated November 1, 1761] / Communication. P.P. Pekarsky // Russian antiquity, 1873. – T. 8. – No. 10. – P. 563-580.
MIKHAIL VASILIEVICH LOMONOSOV.
About the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people.
1761
“The work of the great Russian writer placed here, which he himself entitled: “On the preservation and reproduction of the people,” was published several times: V. Olin placed it in the “Journal of Ancient and Modern Literature” in 1819, part V , March, No. 6, pp. 52-78; then Mr. Pogodin published it in “Moskvityanin” of 1842, No. 1, pp. 126-143, with the note: “the authenticity of this reasoning is attested by the Russian Academy: an excerpt from it, namely the table of contents of other works suggested by Lomonosov, was found by Mr. Fedorov in his own handwriting Lomonosov's original." In the publication of Smirdin - Works of Lomonosov, volume I , pp. 631-654, this reasoning passed in the form in as it was published in Moskvityanin.
“One must think that the named publishers had at their disposal incomplete or bad lists of the Discourses, since, when comparing the text of the editions, there are discrepancies and incompleteness between them: In “Bibliographical Notes” 1859, No. 11, pp. 345- 348, in the article: “Material for the future publisher of Lomonosov’s works,” additions were made to the previously published text of the “Reflections.” In materials for the biography of Lomonosov, ed. Bilyarsky, there are extracts from the protocols of the former Russian Academy concerning the same “Discourse”. The editors of “Russian Antiquity” received at their disposal a list of it with the same extracts, which they considered necessary to place at the beginning for greater reliability in the undoubted ownership of this work by Lomonosov. As for the letter itself, it, being written 110 years before our time (1871), naturally depicts many features that are no longer found in our times; Regardless, every line of such a figure in our history as Lomonosov must be carefully preserved in later posterity. In addition, one cannot help but admit that the article is replete with literary merits, and the editors of “Russian Antiquity” dare to think that they are doing a service to Russian literature by placing Lomonosov’s work on a list that is more correct than those from which it was published before.”
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The above lines are written by academician P. P. Pekarsky(f 1872), who in 1871 delivered to us along with them: “Extract from the journals of the Imperial Russian Academy of 1830.” and “list of Lomonosov’s letters of 1761” 1). At the same time, we were planning to publish an interesting message from the now deceased academician, when suddenly III -th issue of “Conversations in the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature”, subsequently published in Moscow in 1871, they found that N. S. Tikhonravov placed this very letter from Lomonosov, according to a different, somewhat different from the academic, list 2 ).
Having suspended the publication of Mr. Pekarskago’s message at that time, we are printing it now, both in consideration of the importance of this document, and because “Conversations in the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature” is a publication, however, for the history of Russian literature, although very useful - but unfortunately extremely little known to the public.
We are printing Lomonosov’s letter along with the aforementioned “Extract from the Journals of the Russian Academy.” Let us note at the same time that we considered it necessary to preserve Lomonosov’s spelling intact, since it was complied with by the academic list, without even correcting typos. It would be a sin to change the characteristic features of Lomonosov's letter.
Ed.
Extracts from the journals of the Imperial Russian Academy.
May 2nd day, 1836.
“Article 4. The permanent secretary read his copy of Lomonosov’s letter to Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov dated November 1, 1761 about different subjects state economy, explaining that he received this manuscript, however inauthentic, too 40 years earlier, that it was not published anywhere except for the magazine published by Mr. Olenin 3) entitled: “Ancient and New Literature”, but in a distorted form, and that he, the permanent secretary, sacrificing this paper to the Academy, does not guarantee that this letter was actually written by Lomonosov. After reading, the meeting found that the letter could really be the work of Lomonosov, for his syllable is clearly visible in it; and since it contains an object of great importance and has remained unknown until now, to preserve it from complete oblivion, for the honor of our immortal writer, all the more worthy of memory, since some of his thoughts depicted in this letter were given in execution Great Catherine, -
“It is determined: with the copies presented by the permanent secretary, having removed two lists with a good hand, store them in the Academy library, and express gratitude to the bringer.”
1 ) Paperbound notebook, 4th day, 76 pages, clear writing, without the slightest blot .Ed.
2 ) These differences consist in some individual words and expressions. Ed.
3 )The original protocol of the Academy says “Olenin”, but this is a typo, you need to read Olin, as it appears in the academic list of the same protocol. Ed.
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May 16th.
Article 9. Member of the AcademyB. M. Fedorov presented a photograph from a handwritten note by M. V. Lomonosov, in which the following items are recorded:
“1) On the preservation and propagation of the people.
“2) About the destruction of idleness.
“H) About the correction of morals and about enlightenment.
“4) About the increase in internal abundance.
“5) About the merchants, especially with external peoples.
“6) About crafts and arts.
“7) About the State Economy.
“8) On the preservation of military art and courage during a long-term peace.
"Oriental Academy.
“About forests.
"Economic Geography.
"Olympic games.
“Destruction of the Schism.
"Economic Lankara.
“Show idleness: by place and by person, and by time. The husband doesn’t make the mill, but the wife grinds all day.”
This handwritten note removes any doubt about the authenticity of Lomonosov’s work, read in his collection on May 2 of this year
(Article 4).
The meeting, having accepted with gratitude the delivery of such an important act to Mr. Fedorov, determined: a photograph from Lomonosov’s note should be attached to his handwritten essay” 1).
Letter from M.V. Lomonosov to I.I. Shuvalov.
Your Majesty,
Ivan Ivanovich!
While sorting through my writings, I found old notes of my thoughts, extending to increase the general benefit. After consideration, I decided for the benefit of reporting them more extensively and thoroughly to Your Excellency, as a true zealot about all the good of the beloved Fatherland, in the hope (that) there may be found in them something for the real improvement of the Russian world that will serve through your insight and zeal disassembled, located and brought to true execution
1 ) “According to this, the exact list is from a handwritten note by M. V. Lomonosov is attached as an academic list of his letter to I. I. Shuvalov. 1761 Ed.
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maybe. All these thoughts, noticed separately at different times, can, it seems to me, be summarized under the following chapters:
1) About the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people.
2) About the destruction of idleness.
3) About the correction of morals and about big people enlightenment.
4) On the correction of agriculture.
5) On the correction and reproduction of crafts and arts.
6) About the best benefits of merchants.
7) About the best State Economy.
8) On the preservation of the art of war during a long-term peace.
These important chapters require deep reflection, long-term State Affairs art for explanation and precautionary power for bringing the work into action.
And so, M. G., I forgive my insolence that, not having the necessary ability, I only deal with a heavy burden out of zeal, which does not allow me to leave anything (even if only apparently) useful to society under wraps. I consider the beginning of this to be the most important thing: the preservation and proliferation of the Russian people, in which lies the majesty, power and wealth of the entire State, and not in the vain vastness without inhabitants. Divine works of mercy and humaneness of our Monarchs of the meek heart are a worthy task, to deliver subjects from death, even if they are different according to the laws and were worthy. This pardon is obvious and directly dependent on Her Highest maternal will and command. But there is a lot of murder and even suicide, belittling the people, whom it is impossible to exterminate directly by decrees, without correction, or the complete extermination of some customs and some others under the name of ingrained laws.
1) It has become a custom in many Russian borders, and especially in villages, that young children who are incapable of marital positions are married to adult girls, and often the wife could, by her age, be the mother of her husband. This naturally controversial behavior is followed by bad circumstances: tearful adventures and a harmful increase in the destruction of the human race. The first summers after marriage are barren, therefore, such a marriage is not a marriage and, moreover, is harmful to the reproduction of the people, since such an adult woman, being her equal, could give birth to several children in society. The boy is encouraged to
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a perky adult wife by strengthening herself ahead of time, spoils and will henceforth be unable to bear children, and when she reaches manhood, the wife will soon be beyond the age in which she was more capable of bearing children. Although she may become pregnant in an inappropriate manner even in her early childhood, fearing disgrace and reproaches and beatings from her husband’s parents, she can easily commit infanticide while still in her womb. There are quite a few examples where, disdaining a small and stupid man, a wife gets acquainted with another, and in order to marry him , poisons her husband, or otherwise kills, a after exposed and put to death. So through these disorders the unborn die, and the guilty and the innocent perish. The second inequality in marriage occurs when a man in old age marries a very young girl, which, although not so dangerous, is harmful to the growth of the people, and although the lack of unallowed love can be filled, however, unfriendliness, suspicion, anxiety and litigation in the inheritance and great misadventures are the cause . For this purpose, inequality of marriage, which is harmful to the growth and preservation of the people, should be prohibited and should be included within moderate limits. In my opinion, the groom’s bride should not be older than only two years, and the groom can be older than 15 years. This is due to the fact that women are more likely to age than men, especially from frequent pregnancies. Women give birth barely beyond 45 years of age, and men are often capable of fertility up to 60 years of age: it is most similar if the wife’s husband is older from 7 to 10 years. Although it is shown in villages The reasons for marrying small children to workwomen are, however, all empty, because if someone has a small family, but has a lot of arable land or livestock, then hire workers, accept third- or half-term workers, or sell the excess to someone else.
2nd) An unequal marriage is much like a forced one: for where there is no love, fertility is unreliable. Disagreements, disputes and fights harm the conceived fetus and are often the cause of untimely and immature birth. For this purpose, the officiating priests must firmly confirm that, having heard somewhere about an involuntary combination, they do not allow it and do not perform the wedding for fear of being deprived of the rank. The bride and groom would not be asked just for show when they had already been brought to the Church for the wedding, but a little before.
3rd) Although it is not allowed in our law to have more than one wife, the fourth after the third death of ours
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legislation was not ordered, except that a certain Armenopul, the judge of Thessaloniki, ordered privately, relying, as I hope, on the words of Nazianzinov: “the first marriage is the law, the second is forgiveness, the third is lawlessness.” But this is not approved by any conciliar legislation because it He said this as an orator, as a preacher, and not as a legislator; and despite the words of this great saint, the Holy Church blesses the third marriage, but the prohibition on the fourth came to us from Thessaloniki, and not from Ecumenical Councils, or Monarchical and national laws. greatly prohibits the growth of the people. I have seen many widowers from a third wife who were about 30 years old, and my father was widowed for the third time, although he was 50 years old, but still in full vigor and could still marry a fourth. It seems to me that It would not be contrary to the laws if, for the multiplication of the people and to avoid unauthorized carnal mixtures, and therefore unfortunate adventures, the fourth, and out of necessity, the fifth marriage were allowed, following the example of other Christian nations. It is true that sometimes it happens, not without doubt, that everything happened naturally, when someone becomes a widow for the third time, and in just a few years, and there was some hidden crime? For this, a person demanding a fourth or fifth marriage must present as witnesses neighbors, or even better, relatives from his first marriages, that in these his actions were not malicious and shameless, and in whom there will be probable signs of infidelity, or ferocity, and especially in two, or in all three marriages, those women will not be allowed a fourth marriage.
4th) It has become a custom that it is contrary to human nature (I don’t remember whether it is contrary to the laws laid down at councils), that widowed young priests and deacons are forcibly tonsured as monks, which gives a reason for sin, and not for salvation, and for the increase of the people A considerable industry is being suppressed. Ridiculous carelessness! It is not allowed to officiate if one has married a second marriage legally, honestly and blessedly, and in monasticism a fornicator, an adulterer, or even a homosexual is given the freedom to serve the Liturgy and perform all sorts of Mysteries. It is possible to think that a young person, living in monasticism, without any sorrow, content with food and drinks, and in all appearance healthy, strong and fat, would not be subject to carnal desires, which always intensify, the more firmly they are prohibited. For these reasons, it seems that young widowed priests and deacons should be allowed for second marriages not to take monastic vows before the age of fifty, or by removing the rank
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priesthood allow to be secular ranks. This also includes the tonsure of young people directly into monks and nuns, which, although in modern times has diminished compared to previous times, there are still many excesses, especially in Little Russia and at the Synodal schools. Looks, attire, manners, luxury and other actions everywhere show that monasticism in youth is nothing more than fornication and sodomy covered with a black dress, causing significant damage to the reproduction of the human race, without mentioning the infanticide that occurs when a crime is covered up with an atrocity. It seems to me that the hood should be banned for men under 50, and for women under 45.
5th) The above concerned more with the abundant fertility of those giving birth, the following should be especially true for the preservation of those born. Although the prohibition of unequal and forced marriage, the permission of the fourth and fifth marriage, the permission to marry widowed priests and deacons and the prohibition of the adoption of the monastic order until the specified years, can undoubtedly result in a significant increase in the people and there will be fewer illegitimate children, therefore, less child murder, however, according to different Due to circumstances and the weakness of human constitution, it is impossible for a woman burdened with unauthorized voluptuousness or violence to be disgraced, not looking for ways to hide her lawlessness and misfortune, from which sometimes in despair mothers kill their children. To avoid such a terrible crime and to preserve the lives of innocent babies, it would be necessary to establish special God-given houses for the undisciplined reception of disgraceful children, where God-given old women could look after them instead of mothers or grandmothers; but about this especially in a letter about the correction and expansion of crafts and arts.
6th) This is followed by infantile illnesses, debilitating and plunging the beginning human life into the jaws of death, of which the first and most severe torment is birth itself. The baby suffers no less than the mother, and the only difference in their languor is that the mother remembers it, but the baby does not. How great it is, David the Prophet expresses, for, although he depicts the terrible enemies of his sorrows, he says: there are diseases like those who give birth (that is, women). Walking a painful path in a sad and vain world, since often a gentle person undergoes great damage, and especially in the head, in that at his very birth he is deprived of barely the beginning of life and the spirit he first drew,
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in the latter it emits, or for several hours or days it only struggles with real death. This is the first suffering, which often damages the health of those born alive for the rest of their lives. This cannot be prevented in any other way, or at least somewhat alleviated, except by the skill of midwives and the caution of pregnant women. Then follows an illness when the teeth come out, often fatal to infants when it brings especially falling sickness with it. Also, hernias, smallpox, tabes, worms in the stomach and other causes of childhood death, all require knowledge: how to treat these mild diseases. To diminish this great evil, I advise you to do the following: 1st) choose good books about the art of midwifery, and using the best one as a basis, compose an instruction in Russian, or compose a translation in Russian in another language, to which you must add good techniques Russian skilled midwives, for this purpose, having convened the elected long-term art of the gaping business, ask each one in particular and everyone in general and what good will be accepted to be entered into this little book. 2nd) To cure other childhood diseases, based on the great physician Hoffmann, who, 60 years later, was a Doctor of Medicine, and at the end of his life wrote an instruction on the cure of infant diseases, according to which I twice saved my daughter from death, and adding the best from others , combine with the above book about the art of midwifery, while not forgetting that our grandmothers and doctors generally use it with benefit. 3rd) In both of these combined arts in one book, observe that methods and medicines for the most part are not difficult to find everywhere in Russia, since we have so few pharmacies that not only in every city, but also in noble great cities are still unsettled, something that should have been taken care of long ago, but this will be especially presented. 4th) Having printed this book in sufficient numbers, sell it throughout the entire State, in all churches, so that priests and literate people, by reading, can know themselves and use the instructions of others. According to the calculation of the dead in parishes, carried out in Paris, comparing their years, almost as many babies die in the first three years as in other years, counting up to a hundred. So let’s assume that in Russia there are up to 12 million males, of which one million consists of such a marriage that children will be born, generally speaking, one every two years. Therefore, every year there will be half a million born, of whom half will die in three years, or even later neglect and
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more, so that for every year death will include one hundred thousand infants, no more than three years old. Isn’t it worth our labor and care so that even a tenth, that is, 10 thousand, can be saved in life in convenient ways?
7th) Hitherto about natural circumstances harmful to babies; It remains to mention the damage caused by superstition and gross stubbornness. Priests, not only village ones, but also city ones, baptize babies in winter in the coldest water, sometimes with ice, pointing to the instruction in the missal that the water should be natural without using it, and they blame heat for mixed matter, but do not realize that they themselves are baptizing in the summer warm water, in their opinion, mixed. So, they contradict themselves, and especially due to their thoughtlessness, they do not know that even in the coldest water there is still a lot of warmth. From freezing into ice, water takes on a cold of up to 130 degrees, and even here you can consider it hot, because freezing mercury has an incomparably greater distance from this degree than water from boiling to freezing. However, there is no need for ignorant priests to interpret Physics, it is enough to force the authorities to always baptize with summer water in the sense that warmth is equal, because cold water is certainly harmful to a baby who has recently emerged from a warm mother’s womb, especially one who has suffered a lot in birth. One immersion in moderate water is not without burden for the baby, when phlegm flows into the eyes, into the ears, into the nostrils, and sometimes into the mouth (and when the priest closes the mouth and nostrils with his hand, then the breathing that the baby recently received is stopped). When cold water with ice covers the limbs, then signs of epilepsy are often visible, and although he will get rid of the font alive, however, in subsequent illnesses, which every baby must overcome afterward, and especially when the first teeth come out, this deadly disease will most likely recur. I consider such stubborn priests, who want to forcibly baptize with cold water, to be executioners because after their homeland and christening they want a funeral soon for their own gain. How many such unlucky parents are there, who gave birth to children up to 10 and 15 years old, but not a single one is left alive? 8th) The disastrous infant beginning of life is followed by adventures that attack human health, however, these trends. And firstly, intemperance and carelessness with established customs, especially in Russia, which have taken root and have the appearance of a certain holiness. More than other times, Shrovetide and Holy Week devour us, a great multitude of people in one
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only variable consumption of drink and food. It can be easily reasoned that in preparation for the abstinence of Great Lent, throughout Russia many people are being so spoiled that there is no time left to fast. The dead in the taverns, along the streets and along the roads, and the frequent funerals prove this clearly. The outrage of the husband is similar. And there is no reason to marvel? Apart from abstinence in the cursed drinking of food, many try throughout V. Lent to be content with a carnal mixture of legal and illegal, and they exhaust themselves so much on Clean Monday that their health is in no way they cannot fix it with measure, eating coarse lean foods, which are painful even for a healthy stomach. Moreover, the beginning of spring soon follows, when all the bad things accumulated from people and from other animals, which were imprisoned from frost all winter, are suddenly freed and fill the air, mix with water and We, with sputum and scurvy fish, flow into the stomach, into the lung, into the blood, into the nerves and into all the structures of the vital members of the human body, give birth to diseases in the healthy, multiply them in the sick and hasten death in those who could still live longer. After that, the Bright Resurrection of Christ approaches - universal Christian joy - then, although the Passion of the Lord is read almost incessantly and repeated many times, our thoughts are already on Holy Week. Some people imagine pleasant and quick meals: others think that they will have time to dress for the holiday; others imagine how they will have fun with relatives and friends, others expect supplies from the village to arrive, others cook picturesque eggs and undoubtedly look forward to the opportunity to kiss beauties or have a nice date. Finally, Matins began at midnight, and mass was sung until daylight. Christ is Risen! only in the ears and on the tongue, but what place does it have in the heart, where everything is filled with worldly desires and even the slightest wells. Like unleashed dogs, like accumulated water from an open dam, like whirlwinds bursting from a cloud - they tear, break, knock down, refute, torment: There are crushed parts of various meats, broken dishes, spilled drinks are scattered there, there lie unconscious people weighed down by gluttony and drunkenness, there lie naked and tired of fornication recent strict fasters. O true Christian fasting and celebration! Is it not such that God is indignant in the Prophet: “My soul hates your holidays, and your censer is an abomination to me!” Meanwhile, the poor stomach, having become accustomed after a long time to foods of little nutrition, is suddenly forced to accept
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fat and greasy waste into the shrunk and weakened passages, and lacking the required content of life juices, uncooked food is sent through the veins: they collapse, the flow of blood is stopped, and the soul directly flies away into the then open heavenly doors from the tightness of the body. To be sure of this, you can find out from church notes, around what time in the whole year do the priests produce the most honey for kutya? It is an undeniable fact that the unequal course of life and the sharply variable nutrition of the body are not only harmful to a person, but also deadly, so that the above-mentioned strict fasters, moreover, zealous and zealous holiday-lovers, can be considered suicides. It is true that if someone at Maslenitsa prepares for fasting by living a moderate life, does not exhaust himself unnecessarily during fasting, and fasts more in spirit than in belly, during Holy Week he rejoices at the continuation of V. Lent in true virtues, in labors useful to society and dear to God, and not in the fact that he lived to see the resolution of everything - he, of course, will feel fewer attacks from an unhealthy time, and especially when through labor he sets the blood in motion and, in a word, supports himself with either lean or fast foods, but equally moderate, without steep jumps and hills. But here in the North. This is fat at the end, and in the middle the dry time is the most idle part of the year, when the peasants do not have any big work and only eat the sown, reaped, threshed and ground fruits of the field. Merchants, due to spoiled roads and muddy roads, have almost no way to travel from city to city with goods; there is no happy movement for ships and sea people; military people are on campaigns in winter quarters, and at home, either because of the frost or because of the slush, there cannot be convenient exercises. So, the majority of the people must remain in idleness, which, during fasting and breaking the fast, gives rise to unbridled luxury, and during fasting, combined with last year’s bad food and unhealthy air, spoils health and shortens life. Many will say: “Yes, people live!” our fathers and great-grandfathers lived for long centuries! "True! The Lapps also live, feeding almost exclusively on fish; but look how large they are in body and how crowded they are, and compare them with the Semovores living in the same climate, who feed mostly on meat. The first ones are small in stature, sparsely populated, so at 700 miles in length, and inwidth by 300, there are only a few Lapps in large numbers of soldiers from all over the world, two soldiers per number of souls are hired from our people, then some of them are very rare, so that anyone
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to a small extent, he was fit to be a soldier. The seed-eaters, on the contrary, are not small in stature, broad-shouldered and strong, and in such numbers that if frequent internecine bloody battles had not happened between many of their princes, then the noble part of the East-Northern Coast would have been populated with them. Look that those Russian regions are more populous, where there is more abundance of livestock, then that in many places where livestock is scarce, they mostly eat fish or empty cabbage soup with bread. If our Maslenitsa was held in the month of May, then V. Lent would be in full spring and early summer, and Holy Week around Peter’s Day would, in addition to new earthly fruits and fresh fish and healthy air: 1st) promote the preservation of health movement of the body in peasants through arable work, in merchants through long journeys on land and sea, in the military through exercise and campaigns. 2nd) For the sake of correcting such necessary work, there would be less idleness, mothers of intemperance, less guests and feasts, less drunkenness, unequal living and intermittent nutrition, which damages human health. And besides, even if someone got drunk, when returning home they would not freeze on the road, as happens on Maslenitsa, and would not fall through the ice, as happens on Holy Week. I am turning to you, great teachers and organizers of fasts and holidays, and with all reverence I ask your holiness, what did you think about us at that time, when the Holy Great Lent was established at this time? It seems to me that you, in your holiness, meekness, patience and sincerity, will give a merciful answer, and not like St. Andrew’s Archpriest Yakov did - you won’t choose obscene language in the church, or else - like he did with the Sea Captain Yankov on Easter Sunday at the cross for not kissing his hand, he was punished: do not hit him in the chest with your fist. You say: “During fasts and holidays, we lived in Greece and in the Promised Land; It was then established to maintain the Holy Pentecost when, with the full radiance of the spring sun, the rich bowels of the earth open up, sprout young greenery filled with healthy juices, and renew the air with fragrant perfumes. The early fruits ripen for food, cooling, and medicine. Our singing for the praise of God was matched by murmuring streams, rustling leaves and chanting sweet-voiced birds; and about your midnight parties we reasoned that not only there will be no Christian law, but below the only verbal inhabitant, for the sake of the great cold. Don't complain about us! How would we order you to eat dates and figs and drink good grapes?
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Nago wine according to Krasoula, what won’t happen to you? Arrange, like reasonable people, according to your climate; use another time when you are fasting, or in bad times, use moderately healthy foods. You have a clergy who has equal power from Christ to bind and decide. For such an important matter, an Ecumenical Council can be formed in Russia: preserving the lives of only a great multitude of people is worth it. And besides, through teaching, instill in everyone the idea that it is more pleasing to God when we have a clear conscience in our hearts than in the stomach of scurvy fish, that fasts were established not for suicide with unhealthy foods, but for abstaining from excess, that a deceiver, a robber, an unjust, a bribe-taker , a thief and other images of a neighbor, a destroyer, will not find forgiveness, even if instead of the usual Lenten food for seven weeks he ate wood chips, brick, sponge, clay and coal and spent most of that time standing on his head instead of prostrating. Pure repentance is a good life, inclining God to mercy, to generosity and to our love. Keep the commandments given by Christ, on which the entire law and the Prophets hang: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart (that is, not with your guts) and your neighbor as yourself,” (that is, with your conscience, and not with your tongue). There are terrible obstacles to correcting this deficiency. , however, no more dangerous than forcing them to shave their beards, wear German dress, communicate with politeness with non-believers, force sailors to eat meat during summer fasts, destroy the boyars, patriarchate and archers, and instead of them establish the Governing Senate, the Holy Synod, a new regular army, transfer the capital to an empty place and the New Year in another month! The Russian people are flexible!
9th) In addition to this, a great many people fall into other various diseases, for the cure of which there are still very few decent institutions, as mentioned above, and only when they catch a cold, illiterate men and women treat them at random, often combining natural methods, as much as possible. they understand, with fortune-telling and whispering, and thus not only do not give any power to their medicines, but also strengthen superstition in people, frighten the sick with sad looks and multiply the disease, bringing them closer to death. True, there are many of them who actually know how to treat certain diseases, and especially external ones, like farriers and chiropractors, so that sometimes even scientific surgeons are superior in some cases, but it is better to establish according to the rules, medical science components. In addition, all cities require a sufficient number of doctors, doctors and pharmacies,
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satisfied with medicines, at least decent for our climate, which is not only not a hundredth part, but the Russian army is very poorly equipped with doctors, so that the doctors do not have time to bandage the wounded, not only to examine everyone, ask about the circumstances, give medicines, and so calm the suffering. From such disdain, many who would come to life die. This deficiency cannot be filled in anything faster than to send a sufficient number of Russian students to foreign universities and universities established and will continue to be established within the State to study doctoral degrees, and to give, among other privileges, the power to produce worthy ones as doctors. 2nd) The medical office must firmly confirm that both in pharmacies and with doctors there are a sufficient number of Russian students, whom they would at a certain time teach their art and represent to the Senate. It’s shameful and annoying to hear that students of the Russian people, having been in pharmacies for ten or more years, are unable to prepare almost any medicines, but for what? Because pharmacists still keep German students, a Russians with yoke, with sieve and with coal, they live to old age and die as disciples, a German you won’t fill the entire state. Moreover, insufficient knowledge of the language, differences in faith, dissimilar morals and expensive wages are many obstacles.
10th) Deaths from disease are followed by violent, natural and accidental circumstances, as the reasons for the deprivation of human life, i.e., pestilence, fires, drownings, frosts. Although plagues on people occur for the most part in the southern borders of the local state, all sorts of methods must be used against it. These consist in the destruction of what has already begun, or in the aversion of what is coming. The first requires known means to be used against such a misfortune, and for this, the best ones should be selected from among the authors to compose a book for the Faculty of Medicine and print it and sell it throughout the state. For the second, it is necessary to collect signs from previous examples, of which the main one is an eclipse of the sun, which almost always soon causes death to livestock, and then to people. In our enlightened centuries, people who turn to astronomers in the great light know about this and can be careful not to let livestock out of the house and not to give the grass of that day harvested - just as in other States they are careful for two or three days after and themselves against any fruits at that time do not remove or consume, saying that during a solar eclipse, poisonous dews fall. The main reason for this seems, in my opinion
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opinion that during an eclipse the sun is covered by the moon, the same the body, like our earth, is abruptly cut off by the electric force that the sun pours out on all plants all day long, which can be seen on the grass sleeping at night, and also suffering during a solar eclipse. Time will teach how much electric force can act in the reasoning of the epidemic. Eclipses are not known throughout the state, and for this it is necessary to publish in advance, and what is required is ordered by decrees, following the example as is usual in other states. To get rid of fiery death, precautions are taken to quench frequent and great fires, which will be discussed at length in the letter on better state economy. Drownings are twofold: from flooding and from careless insolence, especially drunkenness. The first can be easily averted by prohibiting that there should be no dwellings near great rivers in low places, especially exposed to spring water. This is done out of sheer laziness, so that water and hay and all other conveniences from water are close, but often in the spring those living in high places see in the spring, being themselves safe, how impregnable ice carries cattle and people and entire houses in despair of any salvation. The second flooding cannot be averted by anything without diminishing a lot of feasting and drunkenness, for which people dare to cross rivers in stormy weather, overloading ships with many, or cross ice in the fall and spring, when it is very unreliable and dangerous. In the chapter on the destruction of idleness, methods will be proposed, as well as for eliminating the freezing of many in winter.
11th) No small damage is caused to the people by murders, which happen in fights and from robbers. Harmful fights occur between neighbors, and especially between landowners, who cannot be extinguished by anything other than land surveying. Although detectives are sent to the robbers, there is almost no hope of somehow removing this evil, or even significantly reducing it. The most thorough and powerful methods for this are required. The next one seems to me more reliable, more thrifty and more glorious to the All-Merciful Monarch, and moreover, more kind, because it will have its effect by shedding less human blood. Robbers without shelter in cities and near villages cannot stay for long and use their villainy for a long time. They stay near the villages, and usually often come to the cities to sell looted belongings: so, when these places are made narrow and cramped, they cannot hide for long, there is no need to send teams far away and fight bloody battles with many, when it is possible to have a chance to -
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rib one by one and catch them often. The long-awaited and long-term peace within our fatherland, one and a half hundred years later, after the ruin of the Poles there was no need to defend ourselves from enemies with walls, gave our negligence the reason to have little care for the city fences, and therefore most of the small towns and suburbs and Many provincial and provincial cities, not only have stone walls, or even reliable ramparts and ditches, but also wooden gardens or tins, which I see, not without regret, from the answers sent to geographical questions to the Academy of Sciences from all cities by decree of the Government Senate, but my idea. In addition to the fact that passing foreigners, not without contempt, look at our disorderly cities, or better yet, almost at the ruins, robbers use them as their refuge and can also be protected from worthy punishment in the city, or even better than in the countryside, since the city is larger and on all sides, in every place, the gates are constantly open day and night to thieves and good people. If only the All-Merciful One had deigned to command all Russian cities, whose fences had collapsed or did not exist, to be strengthened, although not with stone walls, but only with a rampart and a ditch and a high front garden, and in not many places to leave gates with strong locks and with reliable burgher guards, where there are no garrisons, so that the rows and benches are inside the fence; then it would be very difficult for thieves to transport robbed things into the city for sale, and it would be incomparably easier to use everything for inspection precautions than together, open on all sides, and a robber can be more likely to be noticed at the gate, who, without selling the robbed things, will not receive any gain. Moreover, in each fenced city, establish permanent overnight accommodations for passers-by and travelers with written permission and with a sign, and order that every owner announce in the Town Hall every day who was staying with him for the night and for how long, a others The townspeople would not have the will to accept visitors and strangers into their house, under fear of punishment, except for their relatives, well-known in the city. In all volosts, churchyards and villages, publish that if a peasant, or two or more, catch a robber, bring him to the city, or to another safe place, and prove it with reliable witnesses and there will be no dispute, then give the drivers for each head 10 rub. from the bourgeois treasury collection, and for the main villainous leaders, for the chieftain, Esaul,
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also for catching and bringing to light someone who runs a thieves’ den, 30 rubles each. Although this would seem to be enough where the cities are not very far away, there are many places in Russia that are remote, 500 or more miles without cities, direct refuges for robbers and all sorts of fugitive and homeless people: an example is the wooded area near the Vetluga River, which , stretching for 700 miles from the peaks to the mouth, does not have a single city with it. A great many barge haulers take refuge there from the Volga in winter, not a small part of which are robbers. The peasants support them all winter for half a man, and if he works, they feed him without pay, without asking for his passport. Cities should be founded and established in such places, giving the noble villages civil rights, establishing Town Halls and voivodeships, and protecting them with reliable fortifications and guards from robbers, as shown above. This will serve not only for general security, and for the preservation of the Russian people, but also for the special glory of Our Most Merciful Autocrat, as the renewer of the old and the builder of many new Russian cities.
12th) Stopping talking about the loss of the Russian people through illnesses, misfortunes and murders, we must mention living dead. People are leaving the borderlands for foreign states, and especially for Poland, and thus the Russian crown is deprived of its subjects. It is true that having placed precautions at the Lithuanian border, however, it is impossible to completely close the great well by force: it is better to act with meekness. Escapes occur more from landowners' burdens on peasants and from soldiers' conscription. So, it seems to me that it is better to ease the taxes of the residents bordering Poland and remove the soldiers’ enlistments, placing them throughout the state. To create a split, a lot of Russian people are leaving for Vetka: could the fugitives located there not be returned in the current military situation? And from now on, ways that will be presented to correct morals and better educate the people can be used.
13th) The place of fugitives abroad can be conveniently filled with the reception of foreigners, if decent measures are taken to this end. The current unhappy wartime in Europe is forcing not only single people, but also entire ruined families to leave their fatherland and seek places far away from the violence of war. The vast domain of Our Great Monarch is able to accommodate entire nations in its safe bosom and be content with all sorts of needs, which can only be achieved by hard work.
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people are expected to their useful work. I can’t imagine the conditions under which foreigners can be attracted to settle in Russia, not knowing the rather allied and hostile circumstances between the warring and peaceful parties.
I would like to compose an approximate account of how many of these 13 methods (and there are even more) would result in the preservation and growth of Her subjects Imperial Majesty. However, this requires many circumstances and a lot of time for this news; for this, I can only guess several times that every year the increase in the Russian people can increase more, compared to the previous one, up to half a million souls, and from revision to revision , in 20 years up to 10 million. In addition, I hope that these methods will not be burdensome to the people; but they will work towards the safety and peace of the people.
(Ending with this, I hope that Your Excellency will like something from my well-wishing opinions towards society, and I ask for your uninterrupted health and all the pleasure of the Most High Builder and Ruler of all peoples and languages; the feast that brought you this day, and infused you with the blood of the son of the Fatherland to do useful deeds, and especially to the patronage of sciences and arts, for which I, as well as for you, strive with all sincerity, and remain with due high reverence.
November 1.
1761.
Message in 1871 Academician. P. P. Pekarsky.
