Griliches, Avenir Girshevich

Vilna

Born into a poor Jewish family in 1822 in Vilna . Father, Hirsch-Zvi Zelmanovich Griliches, was an engraver and specialized in tombstones. From audit tales it is known that Hirsch Zelmanovich had three sons: Zelman-Avner, Yosel-Osher and Nohum-Leizer. Living in a small Lithuanian town , Avner in 1845 married the 19-year-old Pesa Leibovna Nemzer. In 1849, their son Avraam-Shmerko was born, three more children born to the family died at an early age ^[2] .

The Avner family professed Orthodox Judaism ; kashrut was observed in his house in Vilna and later in St. Petersburg. However, his son Abraham would later become a follower of Haskala . The signature of Avner Griliches is under the 1861 petition of Vilnius Jewish artisans to lift the ban on the life and work of Jews in some streets of Vilna. In 1865, the State Council of the Russian Empire adopted a law allowing, among other things, Jewish craftsmen to live everywhere in the Russian Empire ^[3] . In 1868, Avner engraved a portrait of the Jewish writer and enlightener M. A. Gunzburg ^[2] . In the autobiography of the sculptor I. Ya. Gunzburg , the carver’s shop of Griliches is mentioned, to which he came as a child. He describes Avner Girshevich as follows: “Grilliches himself, white as a patriarch, with an endless, long beard, about whom it was said that she was hidden under his dress, for its end, as if, reached to the floor, - sat, deepening in its work ... ". Thanks to Griliches, in 1870, Grinzburg became acquainted with the sculptor M. M. Antokolsky ^[4] .

St. Petersburg

Avner's only son, Abraham attended the Rabbinical School, and with it the Vilna Drawing School. In 1868, Abraham Avenirovich, after passing the exam in drawing, was accepted into the medal class of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Classmates of Abraham Griliches were V. M. Vasnetsov and Yu. Yu. Clover . The first years of study were hard for Abraham, he could not pass the spring exams and was left in his second year in the first year, a year later the situation repeated (Vasnetsova and Clover were facing the same punishment). At the beginning of 1871, Father Avenir moved to St. Petersburg, the difficult financial situation of his son improved and he passed the spring exams in 1871 and transferred to the second year. Further Abraham's study went well. In 1872, he received an incentive award from the Academy Council in the amount of 20 rubles, and soon Abraham also included the Jewish financier and philanthropist E. G. Gunzburg among his scholarship holders ^[2] .

Since 1870, the St. Petersburg Mint was in dire need of skilled workers. Learning about the vacancies from his teachers, Abraham told his father about this. Since February 15, 1871, Avner Griliches was hired by a carver with a salary of 30 rubles a month. In 1872 his salary was raised to 50 rubles. At this time, Avner begins to call himself Abner, his initials in 1872 appear on three medals, in fact he, as a carver, performed the work of a medalist. At the same time, Abner receives an order from the Helsingfors Mint for the manufacture of stamps for Finnish silver coins, which will subsequently be used until 1917 ^[2] .

To become a medalist, Abner needed to receive the title of class artist. To obtain this title, he submitted several of his works to the academic exhibition in 1872: a portrait of the merchant N.O. Levinson in topaz, a mask cut out of steel by General V.I. Nazimov, and a portrait of Count E.P. Tyshkevich . The Council of the Academy of Arts awarded the carver the title of a class artist of the third degree with the condition of passing him exams in sciences. Abner, realizing that he had little chance of passing exams, wrote a detailed petition to the Academy Council, in which he told the circumstances of his life as a self-taught carver without a specialized education from a young age burdened by his family and impossibility of studying, in the petition he asked him to issue a diploma without passing an exam. October 26, 1872 the diploma was awarded to Abner Griliches "as a special exception." On January 29, 1873, he petitioned to take him to the mint with a medalist. Two days later, he was hired as a junior medalist. After taking the oath at the request of the head of the mint and on the basis of an academic diploma, the Senate approved Avenir Griliches as a college registrar , the lowest civilian rank of 14th grade in the Table of Ranks . After the vacancy of the carver, after the appointment of Abner to a new position, his brother Nohum-Leiser was accepted, who received a salary of 28 rubles a month ^[2] .

After graduating from the Academy, in December 1876, Abraham received the title of class artist of the III degree. However, the position of the mint at the mint, on which he was counting, turned out to be occupied. Thanks to the intervention of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, already in the order of March 19, 1877, the Minister of Finance M.H. Reitern appoints Abraham Griliches a medalist at the mint in St. Petersburg. Over time, both Griliches became senior medalists and rose to the rank of court adviser of the 7th grade in the Table of Ranks ^[2] .

In 1896, Abner's wife and Abraham's mother, Pesya Leibovna, died. A year later, Avenir married the 56-year-old widow Frome-Hae Abelman from Lithuanian Kovno . In 1898, brother of Avenir Nochum-Leiser died of tuberculosis . In 1901, Abner suffered a stroke , but continued to work. In 1905, his condition worsened; on November 9, Avner Griliches died after a long illness. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in St. Petersburg ^[2] .

The most outstanding works of Avenir Griliches are considered to be the reverse of medals in memory of the 50-year-old activity of K.V. Chevkin , the opening of Tomsk University , the anniversary of the Mining Institute , the anniversary of the Battle of Kulikovo ; state seals of emperors Alexander IΙΙ and Nicholas II , eagles for coins of five rubles , one ruble , fifty kopecks and twenty kopecks ^[5] .

Abner Griliches became the author of the stamp of the reverse of trial rubles of 1886 ^[6] . The stamp with the double-headed eagle of his work was accepted without competition and began to be used as a model for backside stamps of gold and silver portrait coins. The prototype portrait rubles of 1886, silver and gold national coins of mass production from 1886 to 1915 (except for gold coins of 5 rubles 1895-1911 years), trial gold coins with a face value of 15 rubles, silver memorial rubles 1913 in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty , gold donative coins in denominations of 25 rubles in 1896 and 1908 , gold donative coins in 1902 in denominations of 37 rubles 50 kopecks - 100 francs ^{[7] [8] [9]} .

Badge of the medalist on the reverse of the coin in the form of the initials "A. G. ”was discovered only in 1986 by Yu. V. Nikolaev ^[7] . The sign is under the hoof of the hind leg of the horse of St. George the Victorious ^[2] .

• Obverse and reverse history / [Ed. col .: A.V. Mityaeva and others]. - M .: International Numismatic Club , 2016 .-- 216 p. - ISBN 978-5-9906902-6-4 .
• Griliches, Zvi . Griliches medals (History of the Jews of St. Petersburg. Biographical notes) // AMI-My People. - 2000. - No. 1 (222) (January 16).
• Gunzburg, I. Ya. From the past (memories). - L .: State Publishing House , 1924. - 183 p. - 5,000 copies.
• Gold coins in the history of the Romanov dynasty. Exhibition catalog. International Numismatic Club. - M .: Lingua-F, 2017 .-- 432 p. - ISBN 978-5-91477-038-6 .
• Uzdenikov, V.V. Coins of Russia 1700-1917. - M .: Collector's Book, 2004 .-- 498 p. - ISBN 1-932525-20-3 .
• Volume Six Gadassius - Dante. Griliches, Avenir Girshevich (Grigorievich) // Jewish Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron . - 1910. - S. 783.