Gagarin, Andrei Grigorievich

Childhood and Education

Born December 22, 1855 ( January 3, 1856 ) in St. Petersburg. His father, Grigory Grigoryevich Gagarin , is a well-known amateur artist, chief musician of the court of His Imperial Majesty, vice-president of the Imperial Academy of Arts . Mother - Sofya Andreevna, nee Dashkova , maid of honor at the court of Empress Alexandra Fedorovna , later - a state lady under Empress Maria Fedorovna ^{[1] [2]} .

He began studying in a private boarding school , in 1869 he entered the fourth grade of the Larin Gymnasium , after which in 1874 he entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of St. Petersburg University .

In the summer of 1876, after his second year, he traveled to North America , where he studied metallurgy in the mines of the Rocky Mountains .

A.G. Gagarin graduated from the University in 1878. In 1879, for his thesis “The most convenient way to preliminarily calculate solar eclipses and similar phenomena with the calculation of the total eclipse of 1887,” he was awarded the degree of candidate of sciences and a large silver medal.

Service and science

After graduation, he served as a volunteer in the guards horse artillery, after which he passed the exam for an officer rank and in 1884 he graduated from the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy in the first category. While studying at the academy, A. G. Gagarin published an article and two brochures: “On some joints” and “On a circular ruler”. Then, in the Artillery Journal, his dissertation was published, devoted to the question of the most advantageous cutting of tools.

Since the end of 1884 he served in the Petersburg arsenal . With the establishment of the mechanical laboratory at the arsenal, A. G. Gagarin took up the work of testing materials. Heading the mechanical laboratory of the arsenal, he invented and designed an electric device for automatically balancing forces in the tensile machine of Mohr and Federgard. Later, these devices found their application in St. Petersburg, Kiev and Bryansk arsenals; at the Tula, Sestretsky and Izhevsk arms factories, as well as at the St. Petersburg cartridge factory.

Then he began work on the crash ^[3] press. Subsequently, the device gained wide popularity and distribution and received the name "Gagarin's press" ^[4] .

In 1885, he was on an 11-month vacation, during which he lived in Moscow, where he supervised the construction of a house, now known as Prince A.G. Gagarin 's apartment building on Kuznetskiy Most Street, on a family-owned site.

In 1896, at the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod, Gagarin received a gold medal ^[1] for his press. His other invention - “Gagarin’s circular ruler” - was awarded a gold medal at the 1900 Paris World's Fair .

In 1891 he was sent to France in the city of Chatellerault , where for four years he worked on the commission for the acceptance of five hundred thousand Mosin rifles , which were manufactured at the local arms factory by order of the Russian government.

From 1895 to 1900, A. G. Gagarin was an assistant to the chief of the St. Petersburg gun factory , at this post he contributed to a significant increase in production at the factory.

Polytechnic Institute

On January 7, 1900, on the initiative and proposal of the Minister of Finance S. Yu. Witte, A. G. Gagarin was appointed director of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, which was being created at that time. The main tasks that the newly appointed director solved at the first stage of his activity consisted of developing a regulation on the institute, setting up teaching and searching for and training professors. Largely thanks to the efforts of the director, famous scientists and teachers came to teach at the institute, among whom were professors K.P. Boklevsky , I.A. Meshchersky , A.S. Posnikov, N.A. Menshutkin , M.A. Shatelen , V. V. Skobeltsyn, I. M. Grevs , N. I. Kareev , M. M. Kovalevsky , Yu. S. Gambarov and others ^[5] .

At the same time, on January 18, 1900, A. G. Gagarin became chairman of the Special Construction Commission, which oversaw the construction of a training camp for the future Polytechnic Institute. In March 1900, together with the chief architect E.F. Vierrich, during a month-long trip, he examined 37 European universities and studied the setting of the educational process in them. A. G. Gagarin subsequently used all of the most valuable from those learned abroad at the Polytechnic Institute. Institute buildings were built in less than 2.5 years.

October 1, 1902, the grand opening of the Polytechnic Institute. For the work on creating the institute “in retribution of excellent, diligent and zealous service” by decree of the emperor A. Gagarin in April 1903 was awarded the Order of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir of the fourth degree ^[1] .

From the very beginning of the organization of the institute, A. G. Gagarin took an independent position on many issues of his life, based on the opinion of the Council of the institute, and in many cases at variance with the views of government circles. So, in February 1902, a meeting of the director and deans rejected the proposal of the Minister of Finance, motivated by the need to reduce the risk of student unrest, to organize a polytechnic institute on the model of military schools and introduce a military inspection into it ^{[1] [5]} .

Subsequently, in the period of a growing revolutionary situation and the spread of revolutionary sentiments among students, the contradictions between the director of the institute and government officials escalated, sometimes acquiring the character of confrontation. So, in November 1904, Minister of Finance V.N. Kokovtsev openly accused A.G. Gagarin of inaction.

In 1905, the situation continued to escalate and on October 14 the institute was instructed to close it, but the institute’s council, headed by its chairman, refused to comply with the minister’s order ^[1] . Further, A. G. Gagarin repeatedly came into conflict with government and police officials over the measures they required of him to stop and prevent illegal actions of various kinds committed within the walls of the institute ^[6] .

Critical for A.G. Gagarin, as the director of the institute, events occurred in 1907. On February 18, a search was conducted in the dormitories of the institute, during which the police detained 20 unauthorized persons, most of whom, according to the police, were in an illegal situation. At the same time, “eleven bomb bombs were discovered, a significant number of editions of the Socialist Revolutionary Party , the press of the Working Committee of the Vyborg Party of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, several packs of dynamite , two pieces of a Bikford cord , a box with a hundred fuse capsules , nine rifles and one pyroxylin checker " ^[6] .

On February 28, the Minister of Trade and Industry, D. A. Filosofov , who was subordinate to the institute, informed A. G. Gagarin with his letter that he sees the reasons for what happened as a failure to fulfill his official duty and hands the case to a judicial investigator. On the same day, in his second letter, the Minister informed A. G. Gagarin that he had received the “HIGHEST order to immediately dismiss you from service” ^[6] .

The council and students of the Polytechnic Institute unanimously sided with A. G. Gagarin. In particular, on March 4, the Council unanimously nominated him as a candidate for the post of director, and on March 21, he also unanimously voted for his election as Honorary Member of the Institute. Students expressed their appreciation and support to him by presenting him with an address with more than 900 signatures.

The investigation of the case was conducted for two years. A court in the Senate in April 1909 found A. G. Gagarin guilty of “unlawful inaction of the authorities” and sentenced him to a term of deprivation of the right to enter the public and public service for three years. Such a punishment was the minimum sanction provided for by the article charged to A. G. Gagarin.

Subsequent years

In 1911, A. G. Gagarin became one of the organizers of the Russian Society for Testing Materials. In 1913 , he defended a dissertation at the Polytechnic Institute “Devices that give a relationship between forces and deformations during an impact” and received the title of Adjunct in Applied Mechanics with the right to a department. In addition, Gagarin placed a number of articles on mathematics and mechanics in special publications.

At the same time in the Porkhov district of the Pskov province, in a picturesque place on the shore of Sheloni, he acquired a land of 96 acres and built a house on it, the project of which was designed by architect I. A. Fomin . The estate was named "Holomki" ^[7] .

Relations of A. G. Gagarin with the population living around the estate did not always develop smoothly. Peasants gathered mushrooms and berries in the forests of the prince, launched the estates of their cows and horses. He demanded a fine from them for the damage, detained cattle and punished peasant children. In response, the peasants “twice beat the prince, once with a broken leg” ^[7] .

During the First World War, again in military service. He served as a permanent member of the Technical Artillery Committee for the Department of Optics (1914-1917). In this capacity, he participated in the organization of Russia's first production of optical glass in St. Petersburg and the establishment of an optical glass factory in the city of Izyum, Kharkov province . In 1916 he was appointed government inspector of the Putilov factory .

With the beginning of the war, he founded a hospital with 15 beds in half of the house on the Kholomki estate and kept it at his own expense throughout the war.

After 1917 he worked in Moscow, occupying the post of senior designer at the Scientific Experimental Institute at the People's Commissariat of Railways , and remained in this position for the rest of his life. Due to the difficult living conditions in Moscow in 1920, through L. B. Kamenev, he applied to the Council of People's Commissars with a request to allow him to live in Kholomki, arriving in Moscow for the completion of finished projects. Permission for the personal signature of V.I. Lenin was given, and A.G. Gagarin returned to his family in Kholomki. There he taught mathematics and physics at the Pskov Agricultural College and did some design work for the local executive committee.

A.G. Gagarin died on December 22, 1920, at the age of 65, after a complex operation in the Porkhov hospital. He was buried in the cemetery of the Church of the Ascension in the village. Bielskie Estuary .

July 28, 1885 ^[8] A. G. Gagarin married Princess Maria Dmitrievna (1864–1946), the daughter of the Secretary of State and Actual Privy Councilor of Prince D. A. Obolensky .

Andrei Grigoryevich and Maria Dmitrievna had six children: sons - Andrei (1886-1937), Sergey (1887-1941), Leo (1888-1921), Grigory (1896-1963), Peter (1904-1938) - and daughters Sofia (1892-1979; maid of honor; married to N. N. Rostkovsky) ^[9] and Anastasia (02.26.1902-27.02.1902; born six months old) ^[10] . After the events of 1917, the life of the family changed radically.

Andrei Grigoryevich was arrested on his way to Kholomki in October 1918. Following this, a few days later they arrested Maria Dmitrievna. Thanks to the assistance of the Experimental Institute, Andrei Grigoryevich was released relatively quickly, and Maria Dmitrievna spent several months at first in Porkhovskaya and then in Butyrskaya prison . She was released after the request of M. Gorky .

The Holomki estate in 1918 was nationalized. The Gagarin's St. Petersburg apartment, when they were under arrest, was opened and routed. Later, Maria Dmitrievna recalled how Andrei Grigoryevich, bringing her prison programs, in spite of severe frosts, came dressed in a summer coat with a towel around his neck instead of a scarf, since all winter clothes disappeared during the pogrom of the apartment ^[11] .

Persecution and adversity fell on the younger generation of the Gagarin family. In 1918, Gregory was arrested in Kholomki. He was sentenced to death, but was able to escape and later emigrated to the United States. As a result of various events and at different times, Sergei and Sophia were there. A lion through Crimea left Russia, but soon died of typhus in the environs of Constantinople . Andrei and Peter remained in Russia, and both were arrested and shot: Andrei - in July 1937, Peter - in January 1938 ^[12] .

After the death of her husband, Maria Dmitrievna lived in Kholomki, but in 1925 the local authorities decided to evict her from the province, and in the same year she and her daughter left for Leningrad ^[7] . In 1934 she emigrated, departure became possible only after her sons collected and paid the amount of 3,000 US dollars required in those years for obtaining an exit permit. She left behind her memories of her husband, published in 2006 ^[11] . Her handwritten diary describing the events of the time of the revolution was bought from a private collection by the Governor of the Pskov Region A. A. Turchak , and in 2012, the journal began to be published in the newspaper Pskovskaya Pravda Veche ^[13] .

• 1895-1900 - Furshtatskaya street, 1. ^[14]
• 1900-1907 - road to Sosnovka, 1 (Polytechnic street, 29 from 1956);
• 1907-1909 - Nevsky Prospect, 72;
• 1909-1917 - English Promenade, 30.

• A memorial plaque (authors V. L. Yakovlev, I. P. Nikolaev) was installed on the building of the Polytechnic University (Polytechnic Street 29) in 2005 with the text: “Laboratory of resistance to materials named after Andrei G. Gagarin, first director of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute” .

• Parents of A. G. Gagarin belonged to the highest circles of the Russian aristocracy and were close to the court, which made it possible to perform the baptism of Andrew in the church of the Winter Palace , while the godfather was Emperor Alexander II , and the godmother was the Dowager Empress Alexandra Fedorovna ^[2] .
• Polytechnic Institute graduated from the three sons of A. G. Gagarin - Andrew, Sergey and Peter ^[9] . His grandson A.P. Gagarin for almost twenty years was a professor at the institute.
• The name of Holomki now belongs to SPbPU ^[15] . In May 2013, after the completion of long restoration work carried out at the expense of St. Petersburg State University, the grand opening of the main structure of the estate, the manor house, took place ^[16] .
• The laboratory setup he created still stands in the Mechanical building and is used in laboratory work.

• Gagarine A. Systèmes articulés, assurant le mouvement rectiligne ou la courbure circulaire ( fr. ) // Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences. - 1881. - Vol. 93. - P. 711-713. (inaccessible link)
• Gagarin A. G. An autographic record of the relationship between stress and strain during impact, in the book: Proceedings of the Russian Society for Testing Materials in Moscow. 1912, vol. 2, M., 1913.
• Morozov, Yu. N. The first model of the caster press of the Gagarin system // Engineering Digest. - 1948. - T. IV , No. 2 . - S. 3-9 . (inaccessible link)
• Rabinovich I. M. On the articulated mechanisms of A. G. Gagarin, “Izvestiya AN SSSR. The Department. tech. Sciences ", 1952, No. 2;
• Shatelen M. A. Andrei G. Gagarin, "Proceedings of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute", 1949, No. 1.

• Gagarin Andrei Grigoryevich, Prince (1855-1920). - A selection of materials relating to A. G. Gagarin, in the project "Polytechnic faces".
• A. G. Gagarin - the first director of the Polytechnic Institute (on the 150th anniversary of his birth) - a selection of materials on the website of St. Petersburg State Technical University.
• Gerbyleva N. A man of amazing accessibility and enchanting simplicity ... // St. Petersburg Bulletin of the Higher School, December 30, 2011.