To the 165th anniversary of the birth of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

The Presidential Library cherishes the memory of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, placing and replenishing on the pages of its portal collection rare publications devoted to the life and work of the founder of Russian cosmonautics, his works on the theory of air and star navigation, rocket science, astronomy, physics, biology, as well as philosophical and science fiction works.

Born into a large, often impoverished family, Tsiolkovsky lost his hearing early: “at the age of ten I became deaf and pretty dumb.” Hearing loss became the main event that determined his further “scientific fate”. It was deafness that developed the qualities of character, which later became the basis for his scientific activity. “My character has been bad, hot, unrestrained since childhood. And here is deafness, poverty, humiliation, heartfelt dissatisfaction, and at the same time an ardent, passionate, to the point of madness desire for truth, ”Tsiolkovsky wrote about himself.

Unclearly hearing the sound and with difficulty understanding speech, he got into a mess in communication with his peers. This alienated him from people, forcing him to focus on the inner world. So suffering from deafness turned out to be a boon: the main teachers and friends for Tsiolkovsky were books that alienated him from “everyday vulgarity.”

At the age of 14, Tsiolkovsky made a lathe. A little later, he “arranged” a carriage that went “in all directions” and “against the wind.” The money given for breakfast, he spent on nails for his inventions.

At the age of 15–16, Tsiolkovsky was occupied with the question: what should a balloon made of a metal shell be like in order to rise into the air along with people? So he became interested in the balloon.

Having no certificates and certificates, Tsiolkovsky in 1880 got a job as an “illegal teacher” in the city of Borovsk, Kaluga province. In Tsarist Russia, he taught physics and mathematics, and after the revolution, in the cold, hunger and darkness, he taught chemistry and astronomy. Colleagues treated him with apprehension, and students – with sympathy. During the answer, they stood next to him at the left ear so that he could hear them. This went on for 40 years until 1920. After this time, Tsiolkovsky lived on state support, receiving a monthly pension of 500 thousand rubles.

Tsiolkovsky’s first work on the kinetic theory of gases was not published, but the newspapers wrote about it – so in 1882 his name first appeared in print.

In 1891, when the author was 34 years old, his printed work on air resistance appeared, in 1892 – a work on a metal airship, the idea of ​​which appeared at the age of 15 and did not leave him during his life. In Boris Vorobyov’s book “Tsiolkovsky” (1940) on the material of the biography of the scientist tells the history of aeronautics in Russia, which took place in the struggle between “dreamers”, “fanatics” and “official scientific institutions”. In this fight, the image of “an enthusiast, a man of great ability to work, the greatest impulses, and at the same time an unusually modest man” emerges.

In the book of Nikolai Rynin “Russian inventor and scientist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky” (1931), an electronic copy of which is available in the Presidential Library, tells the story of Tsiolkovsky’s work on rocket ships, it includes descriptions of rocket devices – “experimental”, “portable”, “lunar”. The book also includes Tsiolkovsky’s work on space exploration. “Tsiolkovsky,” writes the scientist and popularizer in the field of astronautics Nikolai Rynin, “belongs to that rare category of people who give their lives to their favorite idea and, despite the surrounding difficult material and moral conditions, do not change it, enduring great hardships, but continue to work in your favorite area.

Indeed, the vision and understanding of the idea as a super-task leading to the “common good” was a counterbalance to everyday life and was the essence of Tsiolkovsky’s scientific studies. “The amplitude of life depends on the ability of the brain to absorb a certain number of ideas,” writes Tsiolkovsky in the book “Mind and Passion” (1928). An electronic copy of this book can be found on the Presidential Library portal.

Works about the Sun occupied him all his life. “The basic ideas and love for the eternal aspiration – for the Sun, for liberation from the chains of gravity, have been instilled in me almost from birth. Where such desires came from – I still cannot understand, ”Tsiolkovsky admitted in his book “The study of world spaces by jet devices” (1926), available on the portal of the Presidential Library. You can also read the book here “Dreams of Earth and Sky” (1938), in which Tsiolkovsky dreams of the possibility of life outside the earth.

“I am not only a materialist, but also a panpsychist who recognizes sensuality in the universe,” wrote Tsiolkovsky with the belief that the universe—stars and galaxies—is capable of thinking and feeling.

“Eternally agitated and eternally dissatisfied”, constantly in an unequal struggle with conservative science, Tsiolkovsky retained the idea of ​​a wonderful future for man, looked for new ways to master this future, while often ironically over his idealism.

On the one hand – a scientist, inventor, philosopher, on the other – an eccentric and dreamer, experiencing the joy of “cosmic proportions” and the hope that there would be no madness and suffering in the whole universe. It cannot be said that, carried away by scientific ideas, Tsiolkovsky was completely protected from worldly troubles. Together with manuscripts, models and drawings, his house burned to the ground, and a few years later, the flooded Oka River again destroyed the dwelling, flooding the models and unique schemes. Of the seven children of the Tsiolkovskys, two committed suicide, and three more died before their parents.

At the age of 60, Tsiolkovsky began to write a chronicle of the events of his life, which consisted of reflections, calculations, intense mental work, and practical experiments that were in conflict with circumstances.

Once in Moscow, near the Kyiv (Bryansk) railway station, in the hustle and bustle of Tsiolkovsky, a briefcase full of manuscripts and charts on astronautics was cut off. “Ah, fools! exclaimed Tsiolkovsky. “There was nothing worthwhile, only dreams that only I needed!”

However, numerous surviving works on rocket science, air and star navigation, astronomy, physics, biology, popular science, philosophical works, electronic copies of which are in the Presidential Library and make up the collection “Tsiolkovsky”needed by the whole world.

“Burning in the fire of ideas” Tsiolkovsky appears in his writings as a “master of the universe”, who believes in the “transformation of the cosmos”, in replacing natural nature with man-made, but at the same time leaving the universe its incomprehensible secret.

According to the Presidential Library