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He was loved for his intonation, for his face and the plasticity of his hands, for his whole appearance, which coincided with popular ideas about true intelligence. Neither before nor after Likhachev did anyone talk to us like this about such things …
I remember how motionless winter stood outside the hospital window. On the calendar – January 1985. Wrapped up in a government blanket, I sit at the nurse’s station and read. I read slowly, stretching out the pleasure, because I have only one book with me. On the white cover is imprinted in gold letters: “Dmitry Likhachev. Notes on Russian. In the army you somehow get used to the sophistication of address, from talking on smart topics, but here I felt: I was invited to think. Thoughts demanded an outlet, and I began to draft a letter to Academician Likhachev …
I never sent the letter. I was shy. But the answer … received. True, only after eleven years.
By that time, Likhachev’s name was already known even to those who had never read his works. Thanks to television, he opened up to the country as a philosopher, a preacher of spiritual values. At the age of almost eighty years, Likhachev turned from an armchair scientist, an outstanding specialist in ancient Russian literature, into a public person, became the leader of the humanitarian community and a generally recognized moral authority. After the party leaders, who spoke with cloth pathos, and the verbose democratic leaders, Likhachev’s voice fascinated by literary and moral purity. Neither before nor after Likhachev did anyone speak to an audience of millions of people about such things: about memory, about gardens, about old Petersburg, about the importance of home traditions …
On February 22, 1996, we talked with Dmitry Sergeevich in his office No. 203 in the Pushkin House. The tall window was frosted over. And just as barely, as in a provincial hospital, the batteries glimmered … I returned home with a cold and was treated for a whole week. And read Likhachev.
His dates
- November 28, 1906: born in St. Petersburg.
- 1914: entered the gymnasium of the Imperial Philanthropic Society.
- 1923-1928: University student.
- 1928: Arrested for counter-revolutionary activities.
- 1928-1932: prisoner of the Solovetsky camp.
- 1930: the first scientific publication of “Cart games of criminals” in the journal “Solovki Islands”.
- 1938: begins to work at the Institute of Russian Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Pushkin House).
- June 1941: Ph.D. thesis on the Novgorod chronicles.
- 1947: PhD thesis.
- 1967: Honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford
- 1975: Opposes the expulsion of A. Sakharov from the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
- 1986-1993: Chairman of the Board of the Soviet Cultural Fund.
- September 30, 1999: died in St. Petersburg. Buried in Komarovo.
Keys to Understanding
Rise above yourself
Every day is a gift from God. After Likhachev miraculously escaped execution on one of the summer days of 1929, for him every morning began with this thought. One must be grateful for every hour and saturate it to the limit. A person should be able to overcome fatigue, resentment, pain. In the late 1970s, Likhachev was supposed to make a presentation at a conference on The Tale of Igor’s Campaign. When leaving the house, an unknown person attacked him, inflicted several strong blows, breaking two ribs to the academician. Likhachev came to the conference and spoke without telling any of his colleagues about what had happened.
field of benevolence
Intelligence is equal to moral health, it is the ability to understand, to perceive. This is a tolerant attitude towards the world and people, towards the other. An intellectual creates a field of benevolence around him. The most important sign of intelligence is to enter into the situation of another person, to understand him, to help. It is necessary to look for the best in people – “obscured beauty”; to be able to feel and notice what is beyond our perception, to have, as it were, a “premonition” of what may be revealed to us.
An intelligent person is always a little in the shade, he knows how to take up little space. Artur Petrovsky, president of the Academy of Education, told how he once called Likhachev and asked for his consent to become an honorary member of the academy. The first thing Likhachev asked was: “Won’t I oust someone? ..”
cherish the culture
“If a people has no culture, its existence is meaningless.” Based on this belief, Likhachev used his influence to create in 1988 the Soviet Cultural Fund, which managed to protect many old and establish many new museums, archives, institutes and libraries before the collapse of the USSR. By all means, he raised the status of museum workers, archivists and librarians, calling them “the last saints.” Thanks to his perseverance, the Kultura TV channel and the Our Heritage magazine appeared. For Petersburg, Likhachev became a genius loci.
live according to conscience
Conscience is a moral core that prevents one from doing “shameful deeds”, as they used to say in Ancient Russia. Conscience is not only a guardian angel of honor – it is the helmsman of our freedom, it makes sure that freedom does not turn into arbitrariness, but indicates the real path in the confusing circumstances of life. It is necessary to extinguish pride in oneself, but to develop “self-reliance”, accountability to one’s conscience.
Likhachev often recalled the story of how Gorky came to Solovki in the spring of 1929. Dmitry Likhachev, like thousands of other prisoners, hoped then: “Gorky will see everything, find out everything, you won’t deceive him. And about executions on Sekirka, and about torture, and about hunger … ”But Gorky’s conscience refused, and he tried not to see the concentration camp on Solovki.
About it
Books by Dmitry Likhachev
“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and the culture of his time”, Fiction, 1985.
“Selected Works on Russian and World Culture”, SPbGUP Publishing House, 2006.